Fig. 126: Montage of Fishing Camps on Amphibious Foundations, Dry in September

fig. 126: Montage of Fishing Camps on Amphibious Foundations, Dry in September

165 fig. 127: Montage of Fishing Camps on Amphibious Foundations, Floating in February

166 05 iii technical feasibility: maasbommel

167 fig. 128: Aerial View of Maasbommel, Netherlands

168 maasbommel, netherlands

169 amphibious homes near the maas river

fig. 129: Aerial View of Maasbommel, Netherlands 170 171 MAASBOMMEL AMPHIBIOUS HOUSING, NETHERLANDS

Two-thirds of the Netherlands would be flooded without the protection of dikes (fig. 128-130). Large portions of the country are situated below two-thirds protected by dikes sea level, which makes them extremely vulner- unprotected areas able to floods after even minor fluctuations in water level. However, through centuries of innovations, the Dutch have created land from water. They have constructed a landscape of polders amsterdam protected by dikes alongside the river and sea, den haag and have integrated pumping systems to remove rotterdam water and keep it out.179 maasbommel

Local architects in the Netherlands have created flood-proof housing to keep residents safe from flooding and protect homes from water damage. The first development of amphibious housing was near the Maas River in Maasbommel (fig. 131-133). The amphibious houses adjust to rising and falling water levels similarly to the way the BFP can accommodate severe flooding. fig. 130: Two-Thirds of the Netherlands Protected

fig. 131: Maasbommel, Site 172 fig. 132: Maasbommel

fig. 118: Maasbommel fig. 133: Maasbommel 173 LOCATION

The Dutch town of Maasbommel is part of the municipality of West Maas en Waal, in Province of Gelderland, Netherlands (fig. 134, 135). The amphibioius project is situated outside the dike ring in a recreational area that is particularly vulnerable to flooding.180

municipal boundary of west maas en waal FLOATING + AMPHIBIOUS

Grer Krengen of Factor Architecten designed 36 fig. 134: Municipal Boundary of West Maas en Waal amphibious and 14 floating houses at Maasbommel for Dura Vermeer, a Dutch building development and construction company. Figure 136 shows a comparison between the two types of housing at Maasbommel. Chris Zevenbergen is an engineer and environment director of Dura Vermeer and is also an Associate Professor at UNESCO-IHE in Delft. Sections of a floating house (type a) and an amphibious house (type b) highlight the relationship municipal boundary of west maas en waal between the structure, land and water. Figure 137 town of maasbommel, site of housing project depicts the foundation system for each type, and demonstrates how each type behaves under normal fig. 135: Town of Maasbommel and conditions and flooded conditions.181 Municipal Boundary

floating house section - type a

amphibious house section - type b

fig. 136: Site Sections, Maasbommel 174 dikedyke

underwater support for floating houses

dock for amphibious Lakeside houses

dikedyke normal water level

floating houses

amphibious houses

dikedyke high water level floating houses

amphibious houses

fig. 137: Fixed and Floating Position, Maasbommel

175 Building proces Building proces concrete box concrete box cast on site cast on site Timber frame Timber frame prefab from prefab from Czech Republic Czech Republic Finishing Finishing elevation on site concreteConcrete box is measured boxelevation is measured out on the out onconcrete on site the concrete wallsReinforcement of each box are concrete reinforced walls with for steel the concrete workspaceworkspace on site box make a sturdy hull

Foto’s aannemer Henk Moesbergen bv Renswoude Foto’s aannemer Henk Moesbergen bv Renswoude

Building proces Building proces concrete box concrete box cast on site cast on site Timber frame Timber frame prefab from prefab from Czech Republic Czech Republic Finishing Finishing elevation on site the box is readyThe to box be movedis ready to to its be final moved place to nearits final the all componentsAll isare ready ready to to receive receive the the first first concrete concrete elevationplace near theon waterwater site box foundationbox foundations for the for amphibious the amphibious house houses

Foto’s aannemer Henk Moesbergen bv Renswoude Foto’s aannemer Henk Moesbergen bv Renswoude

fig. 138: Construction Process of Amphibious Homes at Maasbommel - Foundation Structure

176 CONSTRUCTION THE FUTURE OF MAASBOMMEL

The next two figures, 138 and 139, display the construc- Jonathan Glancey, writer for the Guardian Co., states: tion sequence for the amphibious houses at Maasbom- - mel. In figure 138, large hollow reinforced concrete [T]he solution is to build amphibious hous es, new towns and extensions of existing cit- boxes that serve as buoyancy elements are fabricated ies on flood plains and riverbanks. Float- on site. Andrew Eames, writer from the Telegraph, ing houses, Zevenbergen says, ‘could make states that Maasbommel’s amphibious system is com- up 40 percent of the shortfall in land suitable for development [in Holland] over the prised of a “70-ton concrete box, like the hull of a ship, - - next 50 years.’ . . . The Maasbommel proj [that] forms the basement on which the wooden super ect may yet be extended on a grand scale: structure (two-storey, two or three bedroom) is built. there are plans for a new floating town of These boxes come in semi-detached pairs, connected 12,000 homes near Schiphol airport, which by a deck. Each pair is set into a niche in the river bank could include floating schools, hospitals and shops. Concrete [reservoirs] beneath and held there by a couple of giant steel pillars, driven the buildings will store flood water for re- deep into the ground.”182 As mentioned by Eames, two use, and Zevenbergen says that in times of - houses share a single platform for stability. Figure 139 national emergency, the land ‘can be flood are photos of the upper portion of the house that is con- ed safely; the government recognizes you cannot stop floods from happening, you structed from lightweight, wood-frame construction to can only control the impact.’ . . . The float- ensure optimal buoyancy. Two fifteen-foot steel verti- ing city is at the feasibility study stage, but cal guidance posts penetrate through the shared plat- Zevenbergen expects construction to begin in 2010 [fig. 142].185 form and are located between the houses (fig. 140, 141). The vertical guidance posts can accommodate a In Glancy’s article, Zevenbergen points out how land change in water level of 5.5 meters and ensure that the that is currently not suitable for development in the houses do not float away. When the guidance posts are Netherlands can be used for amphibious buildings that in place, the concrete boxes are hoisted into position will be reliable structures in times of emergency.186 Fig- and the houses are constructed overtop of them. Water, ures 143-145 are more photographs of the amphibious gas, electrical and sewage are connected using flexible houses at Maasbommel. Figures 146-157 are the work- pipes and ducts, which are designed to function even ing drawings for Maasbommel and further indicate the when the houses rise a whole storey. The roof arrives in construction methods and materials. portions that are assembled on site and hoisted overtop of the pre-fabricated timber frame houses. The interiors are split-level, bright and naturally ventilated, with a modern design aesthetic. The bedroom and living room balconies open to views of the Maas River.183

FINANCIALS

Each individual unit has a 700 square footprint (approximately) and sold for $420,000, which is high for the Netherlands. Zevenbergen states that “the cost of building the flood-proof bases and bunkers of the buildings is cheaper than building foundations on dry land, as a great deal of money has to be spent in Hol- land to keep the dry land dry.”184

177 Building proces Building proces concrete box concrete box cast on site cast on site Timber frame Timber frame prefab from prefab from Czech Republic Czech Republic Finishing Finishing elevation on site Thethe box boxelevation is is hoisted hoisted intointo on itsits placeplacesite the prefabricatedThe roof roof is prefabricated is assembled onon site

Foto’s aannemer Henk Moesbergen bv Renswoude Foto’s aannemer Henk Moesbergen bv Renswoude

Building proces concrete box cast on site Timber frame prefab from Czech Republic Finishing elevation on site the roof is hoisted onThe top ofroof the is prefabricated hoisted on top wooden- of the the first large scale amphibious housing project in the prefabricated timber frameframe houses houses Netherlands

Foto’s aannemer Henk Moesbergen bv Renswoude

fig. 139: Construction Process of Amphibious Homes at Maasbommel - Structure of House

178 fig. 140: Vertical Guidance Post Connection fig. 141: Vertical Guidance Post Detail

fig. 142: Floating City, Conceptual Rendering

179 fig. 143: Maasbommel

fig. 144: Maasbommel 180 Pim Bosman Ger Kengen Michiel Louman Dura Vermeer Owner of Former Regional Factor Architecten Manager at and Architect of Dura Vermeer Maasbommel

fig. 145: Dura Vermeer and Kengen Architect

181

34 section

fig. 146: Section, Type A

section

fig. 147: Section, Type B 182 elevation fig. 148: Elevation

plan fig. 149: Ground Floor Plan 183 bedroom bedroom

hall bathroom bathroom hall storage storage

bedroom 2 bedroom 2

plan

fig. 150: Upper Level Plan

184 lower plan

fig. 151: Lower Plan

185 fig. 152: Foundation Detail

186 square tube profile 150x150x50

round tube profile 508x20; I-n.t.b

steel UNP80 joined to square tube profile

corner profile 200x100x10 I=350mm; fastened corner m.b.v. 6 anchored M16

fig. 153: Connection Detail

187 detail - wall section fig. 154: Wall Section, Floor

188 lintel

detail - wall section fig. 155: Wall Section, Window

189 detail - roof section

fig. 156: Roof Section

detail - roof section

190 wooden backstyle 60x80mm, h.o.h. 1,8m

strip 50x12mm

bars 13.5 wall thickness 1,8mm length 520mm h.o.h. 100mm

strip 50x12mm

2x bolted M12 through beam

wood 80x150 wood 80x150 level

steel IPE220-profile fixed on steel plate 2x bolted M12 through beam separately o=4 steel plate 200x200x6 h.o.h. 180mm in to carry PVC 16 t.b.v. out bolts M12

steel partition profile t.p.v. houses type B en B* harmed

scale1:10 detail - floor section fig. 157: Floor Section

191 05 iv technical feasibility: LSU hurricane center prototype

192 site of the LSU hurricane center prototype

fig. 158: Partial View of Louisiana State University Campus

193 louisiana state university

hurricane center prototype

194 CONSTRUCTION OF PROTOTYPE AT angle, a lift from the lateral face to determine the seat- LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY (LSU) ing of the structure and a trim lift to determine the lon- gitudinal angle. Throughout the testing procedure the In June of 2007, the BFP conducted a successful full- students discovered issues with the system, specifically scale partial prototype demonstration of buoyant foun- with regards to implementation. The assembly pro- dation technology on the Louisiana State University cess was questioned, as was the sequence in which the (LSU) campus (fig. 158). Elizabeth English, Associ- buoyant foundation system was put together.190 ate Professor of Research at the LSU Hurricane Cen- ter at the time, led a group of engineering students in From May to July 2007, Stuart Broussard and Ezra the design, construction, and testing of the BFP proto- Boyd, along with other students at the LSU Hurri- type (fig. 159). The prototype was 13 feet (full width) cane Center, built a frame suggesting a house on top by 24 feet (forty percent full length) of a typical shot- of the previously built platform and buoyant founda- gun house (fig. 160).187 tion. They also built a temporary flood tank surrounding the platform in order to carry out the flotation Five LSU Mechanical Engineering students — Scott test. The platform was lifted and moved with a boom Schroth, Dustin Husser, Dustin Ewing, Matt Guidry crane in order to install the flood tank liner. A swim- and Ben Morvant — built a platform and installed a ming pool liner was used to seal the inner surface of the buoyant foundation between January and April of tank. Holes were cut in the liner to accommodate the 2007, to test the system for flotation and stability.188 masonry piers and vertical guidance posts, and a thick layer of sand was used to hold down the liner. Water The platform was built in a series of steps. First, shal- was pumped into the tank from the nearby Mississippi low holes were dug along the footprint and masonry River. When the water had risen to a sufficient level, piers were built up from each hole to a height of the buoyancy blocks began to float, lifting the -plat 3 feet. A wooden platform was built on top of the form and house frame off the masonry piers. To sim- masonry piers and sill beams. Next, a metal frame was ulate the full weight of a house and its contents, water installed under the platform using channels and dou- barrels and sandbags were added. A stability test was ble angles (the double angles are hereafter referred conducted using unevenly distributed sandbags to rep- to as T-beams). The channels were 20 feet in length resent an imbalanced live load which tilted the float- and pre-drilled with a 12-inch offset and ½ inch holes. ing platform (fig. 164, 165).191 The flood test revealed They were installed manually by sliding the channels that the proposed amphibious foundation system works onto the brick piers, and then attaching them to the with a flood test in an observed, calibrated, and con- sill beams with lag screws. Holes were drilled into the trolled test facility. T-beams on site with a magnetic drill press in order to attach them to the channels. All bolts used for the system were ½ inch. Once the channels and T-beams were in place, vertical guidance posts and guide collars (or sleeves) (fig. 161) and the buoyancy blocks (fig. 162) were installed.189 Figure 163 is a diagram showing the prototype’s components assembled.

Testing at this stage included a vertical lift test for basic functionality of the system, an inclined lift test for seiz- ing of the collars on the vertical guidance posts, a lift fig. 159: The Original Team of LSU without buoyancy foam to determine the maximum Mechanical Engineering Students

195 Understructure to Guidance Connections

Target Home Second flotation system

 Beveled Guidance Collar  ¼” Plate Iron

 Shear Plate  Welded to guidance collar 12 ft. 60 ft.  Shear Stress: 6ksi  Safety Factor: 2.3 13 ft.  7x3½x1/4 PL Figure Created by Ben Morvant fig. 160: Diagram of a Typical fig. 161: Diagram of Foam fig. 162: Diagram of Vertical Guidance Post and Sleeve Shotgun House  Buoyancy2 – 1/2” Blocks, bolt Anglesconnections and T-Beams Figure created by Dustin Ewing

Steel Angles (at each end)

Secondary Steel Angles to Support Foam Blocks

Vertical Guidance Post

Vertical Guidance Collar Double-Angle “T-beam” Wood Sills with C-channel

Foam Blocks

fig. 163: Diagram of LSU Prototype’s Components Assembled

196 Part 1:

Part 2:

fig. 164: First Prototype at LSU, Construction Process

197 Part 2:

Part 2:

fig. 165: First Prototype at LSU, Construction Process

198 05 v technical feasibility: noah’s ark project

199 colbert street

louisville street

6222 louisville street

colbert street

louisville street

fig. 166: Aerial View of Louisville Street, Lakeview , New Orleans 200 noah’s ark project in lakeview, new orleans

french street

201 NOAH’S ARK PROJECT AMPHIBIOUS HOUSE IN LAKEVIEW, NEW ORLEANS

This amphibious house is a local example situated in Lakeview, New Orleans, at 6222 Louisville Street (fig. 166). The “Noah’s Ark Project” was designed and constructed by Spatz Development. The house was built in 2007 using prefabricated steel frame construction and is approximately 2,700 square feet (fig. 167). It can rise up to 12 feet in flooded conditions and can withstand Category 5 hurricane winds. The house is listed at $549,000 US Dollars.192 fig. 167: 6222 Louisville Street, Lakeview, New Orleans Clayton DeKorne reports on the Noah’s Ark Project, explaining the construction method: “The shell of the home was contracted out to a modular home builder that constructs homes in a tornado-plagued Mid- west. The homes are framed in steel and sheathed with OSB that is glued and screwed to the exterior walls to create a perfectly rigid shell.”193

The house also incorporates sustainable elements such as an energy efficient roof that reduces cooling costs up to 20%. The roof is clad with metal shin- gles made of 98% recycled materials. The windows are clad in vinyl and are impact-resistant with shat- terproof glass.194 Figure 168 is a photograph of the entry stair. Note that it is detached from the house so that the staircase remains on the ground when the fig. 168: Entry Stair house floats.

AMPHIBIOUS FOUNDATION SYSTEM:

DeKorne discusses how the amphibious foundation system operates. He states, “[Bill Spatz] contracted with barge-builder Marine Inland Fabrica- tors of Panama City, Fla., to craft a 3-foot-tall barge — in essence a floating crawlspace welded together from plate steel and iron trusses that could carry the weight of a steel-framed, 2,700-square-foot home. It functions as a crawlspace through which to route water and sewer lines, but it remains completely out- fig. 169: Vertical Guidance Post side the thermal envelope, and all the HVAC for the house stays within the modular units above it.”195 202 DeKorne comments on the construction of the foundation, “Spatz originally thought the foundation would be built on three self-contained barge units. But to keep costs within bounds, it was built as one large barge in three sections. This meant individual sections had to be tied together with steel bridging inside and seam-welded on the exterior.”196 DeKorne further reports on how the house is kept from moving laterally:

To keep the home from floating down the street, pilings were driven some 30 feet in- to the ground on either side of the foundation near the house corners [fig. 169-171]. Then, a pair of steel brackets was slipped around each piling and welded to the barge. These brackets are oversized to provide ample room to slip up the pole as the waters rise. ‘The toughest part of this detail,’ said Spatz, ‘was finding straight timber pilings, and taking care when driving them in, so the 10 feet that rose out of the ground remained perfectly plumb.’197 fig. 170: View of Vertical Guidance Post at Corner Noah’s Ark Project’s vertical guidance system is similar to that used for the LSU prototype in that both are composed of posts with steel sleeves, however for the LSU prototype the posts are made of steel as well.

FLEXIBLE UTILITIES:

The movable foundation created a challenge when making connections for the water, sewer, and electrical lines. The utilities must either disconnect or move with the foundation as it beings to float. Flexible pip- ing and wiring were implemented for water and electrical connections. The local electrical company sup- plied a loop of wire above the service mast that can accommodate the house rising up to 10 feet. Origi- nally a manual disconnect was specified for the sewage connection, in the form of a simple valve and gasket since it was more cost-effective. Self-sealing breakaway connections are currently in the process of being implemented.198 fig. 171: Vertical Guidance Post - Detail

203 fig. 172: Noah’s Ark Project, Front View

fig. 173: Noah’s Ark Project, Back View 204 The following article by Nikki Buskey appeared in Houma Today on November 8, 2009. It discusses the legal issues involved with the amphibious foundation used at Lakeview (fig. 172, 173):

Pat Gordon, planning and zoning director for Terrebonne Parish government, said he has not been approached with any plans to build a floating house locally.

‘It’s not something we’d promote,’ he said.

It may not even be legal in some of the most flood-prone areas of Terrebonne. [Mike] Hun- nicutt [of FEMA] said that a stop order was issued to prevent construction of a floating house in the Lakeview area of New Orleans because that community is considered a special flood-hazard zone, which means FEMA deems it especially vulnerable to storm surges. Much of Terrebonne and Lafourche lie in such special flood-hazard zones.

A floating home would not meet elevation standards, and you could not purchase flood insurance, Hunnicutt said.

‘We promote elevation of homes, or in extreme cases, buyouts of repeatedly flooded properties, and moving north,’ Gordon said.

There are grants that the parish can help you to apply for if your home has been repeatedly flooded. Parish grants can provide up to $30,000 for elevating. The parish has helped to elevate 150 homes since Hurricane Lili in 2002.199

This article promotes the recommended method of flood protection by the United States federal government of permanent static elevation or in extreme cases buyouts and re-location. Spatz has offered a viable solution for residents in this flood-prone area to protect their property and remain part of their community.

Spatz Development hopes to obtain an occupancy permit in the near future. He has been unable to acquire one due to his specification of a manual disconnect for the sewage connection. Spatz is developing a solution using self-sealing breakaway connections in order to satisfy the City of New Orleans Department of Safety and Per- mits. 205 05 vi technical feasibility: FLOAT house

206 north derbigny street

tennessee street

1638 tennessee street

deslonde street

tennessee street

fig. 174: Aerial View of Tennessee Street, Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans north claiborne avenue 207 tennessee street

reynes street

north derbigny street

FLOAT house by morphosis

reynes street architects lower ninth ward, new orleans

208 fig. 175: Design Evolution

209 FLOAT House lower ninth ward new orleans

fig. 176: Morphosis’ Initial Conceptual Rendering of FLOAT House

210 FLOAT HOUSE - dation should protect the house from future water and AMPHIBIOUS HOUSE IN weather threats. To accomplish this, the foundation was THE LOWER NINTH WARD, NEW ORLEANS engineered out of expanded polystyrene foam, which is encased in glass fiber reinforced concrete. This com- In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Make It Right posite results in a strong, resilient foundation that will (MIR) foundation is building homes in part of the float with the rising flood water.”203 Lower Ninth Ward. These homes are architect- designed, durable, safe, affordable, and ecologically Morphosis further elaborates on the chassis and con- sustainable. Morphosis’ FLOAT House was selected as struction methods: one of the LEED platinum winning designs, and was - completed in the fall of 2009. This 945-gross-square- The chassis of the house is the primary el ement around which the rest of the house foot amphibious house is a single-family residence at is organized and assembled. Consisting of 1638 Tennessee Street in the Lower Ninth Ward, New a thickened raft slab, a service core, and a Orleans (fig. 174).200 Figure 175 is an early concep- large rooftop rain collector, it is designed tual diagram of the FLOAT House. Figure 176 is an to take maximum advantage of shop labor - rates and quality control available through early conceptual rendering. The project merges prefab off-site fabrication. Constructed of polysty- ricated and site-constructed modular building systems, rene foam and glass fiber reinforced con- which can be seen in figure 177. Figures 178-180 dis- crete, the pre-fabricated unit is shipped as a whole to the site with all required wall play the initial design drawings of the FLOAT House. anchors, rough-ins, electrical and mechanical routing pre-installed. Sized for trans- Morphosis states, “the form and design of the house portation on a standard flatbed trailer, all - is fully integrated with the mechanical and support required system storage and internal infra structure are installed in the shop. The unit systems that allow the home to function largely inde- is placed on site atop four stabilizing con- pendent of traditional city infrastructure.”201 This is crete pads located between a front and rear an important feature in providing added resistance to exterior deck, which act as the anchors for flooding. the house when in flood mode. The decks and their associated grade beams are constructed on site using local labor and con- Morphosis describes their twofold concept for the ventional construction techniques. Finally, design of the FLOAT House: the modular wall framing, interior finish elements, prefabricated roofing, and remain- - [First, t]o design a foundation that enables ing system components arrive on site for as the house to function independently of the sembly in the field. The specific design and basic infrastructure and public services that resultant form of the chassis allows for easy have yet to be adequately repaired in the maintenance of all systems. LP and waste- Lower Ninth Ward and which are likely to water tanks are accessed from outside the house, while filters, batteries and mechani- fail again. [Second, t]o create a new house 204 that rests upon that foundation but is wholly cal components are accessed from within. integrated with the natural environment, respectful of New Orleans vernacular, and en- FLOAT house was built using on and off site modu- 202 riched with sustainable technologies. lar construction techniques, which allows for a greater degree of flexibility when servicing particular areas. The house is separated from the basic infrastructure by what Morphosis calls the “chassis.” They use the analogy of a car’s chassis to describe the house’s functions, “the chassis hosts all of the essential mechanical and technological equipment to provide the house with power, water, and fresh air. Additionally, the foun- 211 fig. 177: Initial Residence Assemblage Diagram

According to Morphosis, “FLOAT House can rise flood, the homeowner’s biggest investment should vertically on [two] guideposts, securely up to 12 feet stay intact. Ideally, by that time, the homeowner will as water levels rise. . . . [vertical guidance posts] are have closed the carbon-fiber panels over the windows anchored to the ground by two concrete pile caps each and left town.”207 with six 45-foot deep piles.”205 When water levels rise, the house floats straight upward along the guideposts This project provides an extremely useful built prec- and does not move laterally, away from the site. Thom edent for the BFP. Together with the local commu- Mayne, founder of Morphosis Architects claims, nity, MIR (a reputable, non-profit organization) and “indeed, at first the house was too light and needed a Morphosis (a world-class architecture firm), designed ballast. It had too much buoyancy, so we added a top- and constructed the first amphibious house to receive ping slab to the mass of the building, like putting a an occupancy permit in the United States. It is a help- lead keel on a boat.”206 He goes on to say, “there were a ful precedent in gaining acceptance by FEMA and the number of code issues to work out with the local build- NFIP. The advantages of this system should be appar- ing officials, given its nonstandard systems and struc- ent to government regulatory agencies and the insur- ture, but it eventually won their approval. Apparently, ance industry. no insurance underwriter has weighed in on the design but I would think they’d be elated, because during a

212 fig. 178: Initial Plan

213 fig. 179: Initial Section

fig. 180: Initial Detail Section

214 POWER + USAGE have been implemented to power the FLOAT House in the event of a power outage during a Morphosis states, “An integrated photovoltaic storm. Morphosis further comments on the rain solar system collects and stores the power for water collection system, “The sloped concave the home, allowing it to function off the grid. roof collects rainwater, and funnels it into cis- Liquid propane fuel for cooking and an emer- terns housed in the chassis, where it is filtered gency generator supplement this system. . . . and stored for daily use.”209 The law in New Sizing of the photovoltaic solar system con- Orleans does not permit rainwater collection siders the typical energy required for a fam- for use other than irrigation. It is unknown if ily of four on a monthly basis, and the abil- the rainwater collection system specified in the ity to function up to four days without sun design of the FLOAT House is active.210 [fig. 181-184].”208 Sustainable design elements

fig. 181: Initial Water Equipment Diagram

215 fig. 182: Initial Water Usage Flowchart fig. 183: Initial Emergency Mode Flowchart

fig. 184: Initial Water Usage Table

216 SHADING

According to Morphosis, “Exterior shading in the form of large roof over- hangs and exterior louvers regulate both the interior and exterior climate of the house.”211 Figures 185 and 186 are initial diagrams of the roof and have changed during construction.

MECHANICAL + NATURAL VENTILATION

Morphosis further comments on the HVAC system, “The house relies on passive ventilation through window placement and sizing that encour- ages cross-ventilation. Passive ventilation is supplemented by an active, whole-house fan system, which pulls air through, up and out of the home. Finally, a more traditional HVAC unit is provided to cool each room individually on an as-needed basis.”212 Fig- ure 185 displays the ventilation path throughout the structure. It is an initial diagram which suggests the path of “ducted” air, warm air and cool air, as it circulates through the house. It also shows where the fan coil unit and whole house fan were initially located during design development. fig. 185: Initial Ventilation Diagram

217 fig. 186: Initial Materiality

MATERIALITY 193 are images of the house under construction taken in August 2009. Figures 194-198 are photographs, ren- Morphosis outlines the major material used through- derings and drawings of the completed FLOAT House. out the FLOAT House. They state, “Areas of fiber-rein- Figure 199 is drawing of the final plan and three- forced concrete used in the house chassis and rain col- dimensional axonometric view outlining the signifi- lector are left exposed on ceilings and floors to store cant components of the project. Morphosis states: “The and transmit cool energy throughout the day.”213 Figure primary living spaces: living room, kitchen, bedrooms, 186 displays an initial diagram showing the areas of and bathrooms are aligned end-to-end within a 16’ x the house that were to be made of fiber-reinforced con- 58’ bar.”214 The rooms are aligned in a row reminiscent crete. Figure 187 is a physical model built by Morpho- of vernacular shotgun housing; however, circulation sis, showing how the house could slide up the vertical space is separated, which is not a common characteris- guidance posts under flooded conditions. Figures 188- tic of shotgun housing typology.

218 fig. 187: FLOAT House, Model

219 fig. 188: FLOAT House, North East Perspective, fig. 189: FLOAT House, East View, August 2009 August 2009

fig. 190: FLOAT House, Scaffolding on South West fig. 191: FLOAT House, North View, August 2009 Perspective, August 2009

fig. 192: FLOAT House, Base of Vertical Guidance Post, fig. 193: FLOAT House, Foundation, August 2009 August 2009

220 fig. 195: FLOAT House, Recent fig. 194: FLOAT House Completed October 6th 2009, Front View Exploded Axonometric

fig. 196: FLOAT House Completed October 6th 2009, Interior View fig. 197: FLOAT House, Back View

221 fig. 198: FLOAT House Completed October 6th 2009, Corner View

fig. 199: FLOAT House, Recent Plan and 3D Axonometic 222 05 vi technical feasibility: LIFT house

223 LIFT House dhaka bangladesh fig.200: Partial Aerial View of Dhaka Bangladesh

224 dar-us-salam road

HBRI building

dhaka-aricha highway

225 LIFT HOUSE - AMPHIBIOUS HOUSING IN Rapid urbanization in Dhaka, Bangladesh has DHAKA, BANGLADESH forced a large portion of the city’s population to take shelter in substandard housing in slum and Prithula Prosun, a graduate student in architecture at squatter settlements deprived of basic services. the University of Waterloo, has recently designed and The heavy influx of rural-urban migration, built the first engineered and code compliant amphibi- amongst other factors, has resulted in a housing ous house in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is also believed to market that does not cater to the urban poor. be the first engineered amphibious housing project con- Large public housing initiatives have proven to structed outside the Netherlands and the United States. be inadequate to solve the problem of housing She calls the project LIFT House, which stands for Low Dhaka’s slum and squatter inhabitants. Frequent Income Floating Technology. It was designed for imple- floods in the city have further deteriorated the mentation in impoverished communities situated in low- lives of the urban poor, creating great economic lying, flood-prone areas of Dhaka, and has the capabil- losses and an array of health problems. Low ity of floating in rising water. She was successful in lying portions of the city experience annual obtaining a grant from the International Development inundation due to the overflow of surrounding Research Center (IDRC) to support the research, design rivers and heavy monsoon precipitation, creating and construction of the two-unit prototype. According a threshold for development. The high land to Prosun, “The project has been constructed, flotation- prices of Dhaka make these flood-prone areas tested, and was inaugurated by the Agricultural Minister especially attractive to hazardous slum and Matia Chowdhury at House Building Research Institute squatter settlements. at Mirpur in Dhaka on January 26, 2010 [fig. 200].”215 The design proposal provides a solution for As published in Canadian Architect, April 2010, “Prith- housing that will become a new typology for ula designed an affordable house with a projected cost urban slums and squatters. A prototype of a per unit of $4,000 made from sustainable and recycled sustainable amphibious housing community will material such as bamboo. [The house] derives its buoy- provide opportunities for home based income ancy from recycled plastic water bottles. . . . These bot- generation aimed at empowering women. The tles are plentiful; in fact, they litter the city and cause design consists of a service spine which is a drainage problems. . . . Electricity is derived from two concrete structure that contains all the service 60 Watt solar panels to power lighting and fans. The connections and houses green technologies such houses are served by composting toilets, and urine is as composting toilets and rainwater harvesting directed to the garden through an underground pipe sys- cisterns. The structure for the amphibious houses tem.”216 attach to the service spine that act as the vertical guide. The chosen residents, currently squatter LIFT House, built by construction workers and volun- inhabitants, will be responsible for taking a teers from the local area, is a particularly useful prec- micro-credit loan to finance and construct the edent for the BFP as it may serve to inform the future finishes and roofing for the amphibious houses. implementation of sustainable materials, funding, media This innovative prototype of flood protected relations and project coordination. housing for the urban poor will begin a process that can spread and adapt to the slum and squatter The following excerpt is the abstract Prosun submitted areas of Dhaka, giving each citizen a chance to for the IDRC, which describes details and initiatives of exercise their right to decent housing.217 the project.

226 Notable design features include: HOW IT WORKS

• A Raised Courtyard and Vegetable Each of the two-unit dwellings is primarily made of Garden: Soil from excavation is used for a bamboo and provides living and sleeping quarters for shared courtyard and vegetable garden. a single family. The central brick spine houses the plumbing, utilities and rainwater storage cisterns. The • Washrooms: Toilets and showers are vertical guidance system is comprised of a steel pipe located on the ground level in the brick that is cast into the masonry service core with a slit service spine and remain stationary during cut along the front, facing the bamboo house. Inside a flood. the pipe, a smaller steel pipe (approximately 1 foot in length) is inserted that slides up and down inside the • Brick Service Spine: Contains service main pipe. The smaller pipe is attached to the bam- lines, water cistern and composting tanks. boo dwelling with metal plates that pass through the slot in the larger pipe. Buoyancy of the bamboo dwell- • Indigenous Materials: Exterior clad- ing units is achieved using two different systems: one ding, interior finishes and roofing are all of the dwellings has a hollow ferrocement founda- made from indigenous materials. tion, the other is a bamboo frame foundation filled with recapped empty water bottles. The steel vertical guid- • Bamboo Units on Amphibious Founda- ance system attaches the bamboo dwellings to the brick tions: Connected to the brick service spine, and concrete service spine and the dwellings slide up 119 that acts as a vertical guide during flotation. and down vertically.

• Elevated Walkways: The top of the brick CONSTRUCTION TIMELINE service spine becomes an elevated brick pathway and exterior space for residents.218 Figures 210-221 are site photographs of the project under construction. At the beginning of Novem- ber 2009, soil tests were initiated on the site of LIFT Prosun’s original design began as an 8-unit residence, House. Excavation began on November 12, 2009, and but the experimental prototype constructed has 2 units. lasted for four days. On the fifth day, November 17, The following descriptions reflect the initial 8-unit 2009, reinforcement for the concrete slab was set in concept. place and two days later, concrete was poured for the foundation. On November 22, 2009, the team began Figure 201 is the initial rendered plan of the ground constructing the brick walls for the central service spine level displaying the showers, composting toilets, ser- to house the composting latrines and rainwater storage vice stairs and a vegetable garden. Dual access is cisterns, which took 12 days to complete. While the provided, allowing compartmentalization of living masonry service spine was being constructed, bamboo spaces. The amphibious housing units made of bam- was also obtained to construct the amphibious housing boo are attached with steel connectors to the brick ser- units and was later chemically treated. The first buoy- vice spine. Figures 202 and 203 are the initial rendered ancy element was then created for testing, using empty sectional comparisons of the units in dry conditions recapped plastic water bottles encased in a bamboo and flooded conditions. Figure 204 highlights the ini- frame. On November 23, 2009, the bamboo encased- tial notable design elements. Figures 205-207 are ini- water bottle buoyancy element was tested with live tial conceptual perspective renderings. Figures 208 and load; four team members stood on top of the buoyancy 209 are renderings of the 2-unit prototype. element to test its capacity. On December 14, 2009, a

227 ferrocement frame was prepared in order to create one structural frames of each unit to create the walls and of the buoyant foundations. On December 31, 2009, windows. On January 26, 2010, the LIFT House was the empty recapped plastic water bottles were prepared fully completed and the opening ceremony was held and grouped into plastic bags. By January 5th, 2010, on site in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Figures 222 and 223 the bamboo frames for both units were completely are photographs of the completed project in January erected and ready to be clad. On January 11, 2010, 2010.220 woven bamboo cladding was attached to the bamboo

fig. 201: LIFT House, Rendered Plan

228 fig. 202: LIFT House, Rendered Section In Dry Conditions

fig. 203: LIFT House, Rendered Section During a Flood

229 fig. 204: LIFT House, Design Elements

fig. 205: LIFT House, Perspective During a Flood

230 fig. 206: LIFT House, Rendered Perspective of Courtyard

fig. 207: LIFT House, Rendered Sectional Perspective of Amphibious Structure 231 fig. 208: LIFT House, Double Unit Rendering, Front Perspective

232 fig. 209: LIFT House, Double Unit Rendering, Side Perspective

233 fig. 210: Digging Bore Hole for Soil Test fig. 211: Prithula Overseeing Excavation

fig. 212: Excavation fig. 213: Preparing Foundation

fig. 214: Preparing Foundation 2 fig. 215: Capped Water Bottle Buoyancy System

234 fig. 216: Prithula Overseeing Wall Construction fig. 217: Wall Construction,

fig. 218: Construction Team Assembling Masonry Wall fig. 219: Bamboo Structure in Place

fig. 220: Bamboo Structure in Place beside Concrete Spine fig. 221: Bamboo Structure in Place beside Concrete Spine, Perspectival View 235 fig. 222: LIFT House, Completed January 2010, Front View

236 fig. 223: LIFT House, Completed January 2010, Three-Quarter View

237 05 vii technical feasibility: analysis

238 TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY SUMMARY

The following summary highlights relevant components of each example in relation to the Buoyant Foundation Project (BFP).

POINTE COUPEE PARISH (mid 1970s to present) fig. 224: Amphibious Fishing Camps, Raccourci Old River, Louisiana The first amphibious fishing camps at Raccourci Old River in Pointe Coupee Par- ish, Louisiana, were constructed around the mid-1970s (fig. 224). They display an amphibious foundation system installed on mobile housing, and prove its reliability, functionality, and affordability. They have been designed and installed by homeowners, providing an example of a retrofit system that has worked for over 30 years. The amphibious fishing camps utilize a basic system configuration that can be engineered, made code compliant, and aesthetically appropriate for urban applications. fig. 225: Amphibious Housing, The amphibious system is usually comprised of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam Maasbommel, Netherlands blocks fastened under the steel frame, with steel sleeves that slide up and down on steel vertical guidance posts. It is a reliable system that is cost-effective and uses retrofit construction to encourage the preservation of existing structures, which also makes it sustainable.221

MAASBOMMEL (2006) fig. 226: LSU Prototype, Baton Rouge, Louisiana The amphibious housing at Maasbommel (fig. 225) exemplifies a modern, engineered solution that can be easily reproduced. It is a widely publicized built example of amphibious architecture in the Netherlands, classifying it as a type and announc- ing its technical feasibility for new construction. It is an internationally known example of the concept’s feasibility, functionality and appropriateness as a flood mitigation strategy in flood-prone applications.

fig. 227: Noah’s Ark Project, Maasbommel’s amphibious housing is new construction that allows for a greater New Orleans, Louisiana degree of design flexibility in the search for appropriate innovative solutions that achieve stability. Each platform supports two houses and the vertical guidance posts are located in an unobtrusive position between the houses. In contrast, the BFP is a retrofit, where stabilization and concealing vertical guidance posts is more challeng- ing.222

LSU HURRICANE CENTER PROTOTYPE (2007) fig. 228: FLOAT House, New Orleans, Louisiana This prototype (fig. 226) is a simple demonstration that the amphibious foundation system proposed by the BFP works when flood tested in an observed, calibrated, and controlled test facility. The amphibious fishing camps at Pointe Coupee Parish provide an example of the basic system configuration for the prototype. The main components of the amphibious system are expanded polystyrene (EPS) blocks fastened to a steel substructure with sleeves sliding on four fixed vertical guidance posts.223 fig. 229: LIFT House, Dhaka, Bangladesh 239 NOAH’S ARK PROJECT (2007) contributed to the exposure of amphibious solutions, raising public awareness and stimulating the demand This example in the Lakeview neighbourhood of New for amphibious housing in the Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans is believed to be the first fully engineered and Orleans and elsewhere.226 legally permitted amphibious house constructed in the United States (fig. 227). The house is prefabricated, LIFT HOUSE (2010) steel-frame construction that is technically feasible and aesthetically appropriate for New Orleans. The house Prithula Prosun, a graduate student at the University sits on a 3-foot-high hollow box that is constructed of Waterloo School of Architecture, created the LIFT from welded plate steel and iron trusses. Heavy timber House. This recently completed project targets the low- vertical guidance posts are sunk into the ground at the income population in flood-prone Dhaka, Bangladesh four corners of the house. Metal sleeves that can slide (fig. 229). It is an international example of technical up and down on the posts are welded to the metal box and economic feasibility and appropriateness, employ- base.224 ing the use of sustainable materials. Buoyancy is achieved through two methods: a hollow ferrocement FLOAT HOUSE (2009) foundation for one unit and a bamboo frame foundation filled with recapped empty water bottles for the The FLOAT House (fig. 228) demonstrates the techni- other. A central, masonry service spine provides ver- cal feasibility and appropriateness of amphibious con- tical guidance for the two bamboo dwellings. These struction for the culture of a local neighbourhood in innovative techniques may provide insight to the BFP New Orleans. It is situated in close proximity to the during future development.227 potential site of the BFP in the Lower Ninth Ward and is the first amphibious house to receive an occupancy Figure 230 compares significant parameters of each permit in the United States.225 example, visually outlining feasibility aspects in relation to the BFP. The base of the house, what Morphosis refers to as the “chassis,” provides buoyancy. It allows the house to slide vertically on two steel guidance posts as water levels rise and float up to a height of twelve feet. The “chassis” was prefabricated and modular, made of a single unit of expanded polystyrene foam coated in glass fiber reinforced concrete. It houses all the required anchors, electrical, mechanical, and plumbing systems pre-installed. Two vertical guidance posts, exposed on the interior but not visible from the exterior, are encased in concrete reinforced sleeves one at each end of the house. Two concrete piles caps, each with six 45-foot deep piles, anchor the vertical guidance posts to the ground. The house rests on a raised 4-foot base under normal conditions, which facilitates accessibility while fostering the porch culture of the Lower Ninth Ward neighbourhood. FLOAT House not only serves as a design precedent, but also as a political precedent in obtaining local building permits. MIR has

240 max height during amphibious project architect/ major building technical feasibility challenges buoyancy + vertical guidance systems cost name + location completion builder flooded conditions + materials application to the BFP total living area 15-25 feet amphibious fishing camps in pointe coupee parish mid individual annual spring flooding of mississippi river size varies - expanded polystyrene (EPS) blocks steel / timber, $ 5,000 provide the basic system 1970’s homeowners fastened under the frame with sleeves that EPS foam for configuration that needs to lakefront area in rural louisiana 540-960 sq ft slide up on fixed vertical guidance posts buoyancy (or less) to be engineered, made present code compliant and fishing camps (typical size of a raccourci old river, single-wide) aesthetically appropriate louisiana for urban applications massbommel was ger kengen 60% of netherlands below sea level 18 feet 70-tonne concrete box provides buoyancy timber, $ 310,000 factor architecten creates a vulnerable topographic condition and forms the basement on which the wooden concrete, the first modern built amphibious architecture 1600 sq ft superstructure is built steel (starting price) project, classifying it as chris zevenbergen (approx.) supplement to infrastructural flood mitigation a type, demonstrating 2006 dura vermeer strategies, constructed on a recreational site for each boxes come in semi-detached pairs, connected its feasibility and construction outside the dike system 2-storey by a deck - each pair is set into a niche in the housing unit river bank and held there by 2 large steel posts functionality for flood maasbommel mitigation in below mass river, netherlands sea-level applications.

dr. elizabeth english full scale prototype conducted on LSU 5 feet expanded polystyrene (EPS) blocks steel / timber, $ 6,500 a simple demonstration working with campus demonstrating the efficacy of the fastened to a steel substructure EPS foam for that the proposed BFP buoyant foundation system 312 sq ft with sleeves sliding on four fixed buoyancy (including system works in an 2007 LSU mechanical (13’ x 24’) vertical guidance posts temporary observed, measured engineering flood tank) calibrated flood test in LSU hurricane center and hurricane center a controlled test facility prototype students demonstrating the baton rouge, louisiana technical feasibility.

amphibious housing solution subsidized by MIR steel, tom mayne 12 feet the base of the house is reconceived as a $ 150,000* demonstrates the morphosis chassis – acts as a raft, allowing the house concrete, technical feasibility and innovative sustainable structure to protect a architects to rise vertically on two steel guidance posts, EPS foam coated appropriateness for single-storey new construction house from 1000 sq ft (list price 2009 in glass-fiber rein- (approx) floating up to twelve feet as water levels rise subsidized by the local culture of new brad pitt flooding, alleviates the inconvenience of a -the ‘chassis’ made from polystyrene foam forced concrete, orleans, particularly the permanently elevated home, facilitates the local MIR - actual cost make it house is wood- lower ninth ward porch culture by allowing the house to remain coated in glass fiber reinforced concrete of construction is right foundation frame construction FLOAT house close to street level undisclosed) new orleans, louisiana

rapid urbanization - large portion of the city’s 5 feet buoyancy is achieved from two different sys- bamboo, masonry, $ 4,000 per unit demonstrates the population in slum and squatter settlements tems: one of the dwellings has a hollow fer- ferrocement, technical and economic 400 sq ft rocement foundation, the other is a bamboo plastic water bottles feasibility and 2010 prithula prosun low-lying portions of the city experience annual for each frame foundation filled with recapped empty for buoyancy, appropriateness for a water bottles - the steel vertical guidance sys- slotted steel tubes uw m.arch candidate flooding due to the overflow of surrounding rivers 2-storey low-income population and heavy monsoon precipitation. housing unit tem attaches the bamboo dwellings to the brick cast into masonry and use of sustainable LIFT house and concrete service spine - dwellings slide up base for vertical materials dhaka, bangledesh and down vertically guidance

steel, coated EPS $ 20,000 + the BFP provides an alternative form of flood 25 feet coated EPS foam for buoyancy fastened to combines all design projected dr. elizabeth english protection to alleviate the inconvenience the steel substructure - telescoping vertical foam for buoyancy parameters listed above the buoyant of permanently elevated homes - allowing (possible use of (cost to restore 700-1100 sq ft guidance posts that pull out of the ground as as well as potentially 2011/2012 foundation project homes to sit close to street level under normal the house rises are being developed thermoplastic timber upper portion implementing conditions and float when it floods - greater in place of steel) of house if thermoplastic timber BFP projected for degree of protection from extreme flooding than necessary) new orleans, louisiana permanently elevated homes

241 max height during amphibious project architect/ major building technical feasibility challenges buoyancy + vertical guidance systems cost name + location completion builder flooded conditions + materials application to the BFP total living area 15-25 feet amphibious fishing camps in pointe coupee parish mid individual annual spring flooding of mississippi river size varies - expanded polystyrene (EPS) blocks steel / timber, $ 5,000 provide the basic system 1970’s homeowners fastened under the frame with sleeves that EPS foam for configuration that needs to lakefront area in rural louisiana 540-960 sq ft slide up on fixed vertical guidance posts buoyancy (or less) to be engineered, made 1 present code compliant and fishing camps (typical size of a raccourci old river, single-wide) aesthetically appropriate louisiana for urban applications massbommel was ger kengen 60% of netherlands below sea level 18 feet 70-tonne concrete box provides buoyancy timber, $ 310,000 factor architecten creates a vulnerable topographic condition and forms the basement on which the wooden concrete, the first modern built amphibious architecture 1600 sq ft superstructure is built steel (starting price) project, classifying it as chris zevenbergen (approx.) supplement to infrastructural flood mitigation a type, demonstrating 2006 dura vermeer strategies, constructed on a recreational site for each boxes come in semi-detached pairs, connected its feasibility and construction outside the dike system 2-storey by a deck - each pair is set into a niche in the 2 housing unit river bank and held there by 2 large steel posts functionality for flood maasbommel mitigation in below mass river, netherlands sea-level applications. dr. elizabeth english full scale prototype conducted on LSU 5 feet expanded polystyrene (EPS) blocks steel / timber, $ 6,500 a simple demonstration working with campus demonstrating the efficacy of the fastened to a steel substructure EPS foam for that the proposed BFP buoyant foundation system 312 sq ft with sleeves sliding on four fixed buoyancy (including system works in an 2007 LSU mechanical (13’ x 24’) vertical guidance posts temporary observed, measured engineering flood tank) calibrated flood test in 3 LSU hurricane center and hurricane center a controlled test facility prototype students demonstrating the baton rouge, louisiana technical feasibility.

- a hollow 3-foot high barge welded together steel for frame situated in a low-lying, flood-prone neighbour 12 feet demonstrates the hood - lakeview, new orleans from plate steel and iron trusses that carry the timber for spatz developments $ 525,000 technical feasibility 2,700 sq ft weight of this steel-framed home vertical 2007 and noah’s ark project guidance posts and appropriateness noah’s ark project provides flood protection for a (approx) (asking price) for new orleans using 2-storey, new construction house, alleviates the wooden vertical guidance posts at the four pre-fabricated new inconvenience of a permanently elevated house corners of the house prefabricated 4 construction noah’s ark project by allowing the house to remain close to street construction new orleans, louisiana level amphibious housing solution subsidized by MIR steel, tom mayne 12 feet the base of the house is reconceived as a $ 150,000* demonstrates the chassis – acts as a raft, allowing the house concrete, technical feasibility and morphosis innovative sustainable structure to protect a to rise vertically on two steel guidance posts, EPS foam coated appropriateness for architects single-storey new construction house from 1000 sq ft (list price 2009 in glass-fiber rein- (approx) floating up to twelve feet as water levels rise subsidized by the local culture of new flooding, alleviates the inconvenience of a -the ‘chassis’ made from polystyrene foam forced concrete, orleans, particularly the brad pitt permanently elevated home, facilitates the local MIR - actual cost house is wood- lower ninth ward make it porch culture by allowing the house to remain coated in glass fiber reinforced concrete of construction is 5 frame construction FLOAT house right foundation close to street level undisclosed) new orleans, louisiana rapid urbanization - large portion of the city’s 5 feet buoyancy is achieved from two different sys- bamboo, masonry, $ 4,000 per unit demonstrates the population in slum and squatter settlements tems: one of the dwellings has a hollow fer- ferrocement, technical and economic 400 sq ft rocement foundation, the other is a bamboo plastic water bottles feasibility and for buoyancy, 2010 prithula prosun low-lying portions of the city experience annual for each frame foundation filled with recapped empty appropriateness for a water bottles - the steel vertical guidance sys- slotted steel tubes uw m.arch candidate flooding due to the overflow of surrounding rivers 2-storey low-income population 6 and heavy monsoon precipitation. housing unit tem attaches the bamboo dwellings to the brick cast into masonry and use of sustainable LIFT house and concrete service spine - dwellings slide up base for vertical materials dhaka, bangledesh and down vertically guidance

fig 230: Technical Feasibility Comparison Chart

242 ANALYSIS In addition, lateral stability can be achieved more easily with new construction, as observed with Maasbommel The previous chart outlines the parameters and compo- and the LIFT House. In each of these examples, hous- nents common to each example of amphibious archi- ing units are joined by sharing a common element that tecture. The following analysis will elaborate on the provides lateral resistance. For the amphibious houses information noted in the chart, compare the key ele- in Maabommel, two houses share a platform that pro- ments of each amphibious system, and assess the place vides lateral stability. For the LIFT House, a central, of the BFP in the discussion of amphibious architec- fixed, masonry spine provides both stability and verti- ture. cal guidance.230

The projects presented are international examples of Although retrofits do not allow for a great deal of amphibious flood-protection strategies for urban and design flexibility, as exhibited by the amphibious fish- rural housing types. They were all built in the last 5 ing camps at Point Coupee Parish, they are a catalyst years, with the exception of the amphibious fishing for rehabilitation of damaged structures and are a more camps in Pointe Coupee Parish, which first appeared sustainable choice than demolition and new construc- in the 1970s.228 tion.

The examples of amphibious architecture discussed The LIFT House exhibits some unique and distinctive provide effective and reliable solutions to the over- features. The buoyancy elements are compartmental- arching problem of flood mitigation for housing in ized to provide a greater degree of reliability and ser- low-lying, flood-prone areas. Each location faces the viceability. For one of the two LIFT houses, recapped challenge of global warming. In addition, the follow- empty plastic water bottles are used for buoyancy. They ing, specific challenges apply to individual projects: are grouped in bundles wrapped in plastic bags, and seasonal flooding, subsidence, vulnerability to storm then encased in a bamboo frame. In the event that one surge, severe weather conditions, and unreliable large- bundle gets damaged, it can be easily replaced without scale infrastructure. affecting the others. In addition, the vertical guidance system possesses unique connection details. It is com- The following fundamental characteristics are present prised of a steel pipe that is cast into the masonry ser- in each example of amphibious architecture: the abil- vice core with a slit cut along the front, facing the bam- ity to operate passively and move vertically, while pos- boo house. Inside the pipe is inserted a smaller steel sessing buoyancy elements, a vertical guidance system pipe, approximately 1 foot in length, which slides up and the flexibility to reside on land and, when required, and down inside the main pipe. The smaller pipe is fas- float on water. The design constraints are generally dic- tened to the bamboo dwelling with metal plates that tated by the context, the type of construction and bud- pass through the slot in the larger pipe.231 get. The size of each project falls within a range of 300 to The ranges of techniques implemented are primarily 2,700 square feet. The major variance in size is between based on whether the project is new construction or a a double or single unit, and one or two-storeys.232 retrofit. New construction allows for a higher degree of flexibility and aesthetic refinement when incorporat- Although the budget for each project created design ing the amphibious elements. For example, the FLOAT constraints, it simultaneously offered an opportunity for House is designed with the vertical guidance system innovation. on the interior of the structure and a “chassis” to provide buoyancy, situated beneath the residential portion of the structure.229 243 The unique typology of amphibious architecture fosters Along with the functional constraints that exist for new inventive solutions that allow land-based structures to or retrofit amphibious housing, the majority of cases adapt to water. The price range for each project varies must comply with legal policies that dictated a portion from the more modest schemes of $5000 for the retrofit of the design. For example, Noah’s Ark Project origi- of fishing camps in Pointe Coupee Parish, to $525,000 nally specified a manual disconnect for sewage. How- for a newly constructed amphibious home, Noah’s Ark ever, the City of New Orleans has apparently objected Project. The amphibious fishing camps in Pointe Cou- to this type of connection; therefore a self-sealing pee Parish, LIFT House, and the BFP prototype are all breakaway connection will be used instead.236 low-cost examples, ranging from $4000 to $5000 compared to Maasbommel, Noah’s Ark Project and FLOAT COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS House which are between $400,000 to $500,000. 233 It is a challenge to compare these projects to each other Material selection was essentially based on budget, as there are unique factors employed in each project. availability, functional requirements, and the type of Projects may be comparatively analyzed with two or construction. Many of the new construction examples more common elements such as their location and con- utilize prefabricated elements. struction types. It is more effective to deconstruct each example. The key component of the FLOAT House is a prefabricated “chassis,” made from polystyrene foam coated in APPLICATION + IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE BFP glass fiber-reinforced concrete. Maasbommel employed the use of prefabricated elements for the roof and clad- As observed with the fishing camps in Pointe Coupee ding. Noah’s Ark Project also used pre-fabricated con- Parish, the most cost-effective mode to construct an struction for the upper portion of the house. The amphib- amphibious foundation is through retrofit. This prec- ious fishing camps in Point Coupee Parish in some edent was highly influential in the development of the cases retrofit existing prefabricated mobile homes. LSU prototype as it employs similar approaches to Each vertical guidance system is made from steel com- buoyancy and vertical guidance.237 ponents, except for the Noah’s Ark Project, where the posts are solid timber. The buoyancy elements varied Since FLOAT House and the BFP share a similar loca- for each project. Maasbommel and Noah’s Ark Proj- tion and a close proximity, design considerations for ect both used hollow boxes (Maasbommel made of the FLOAT House are more applicable than perhaps concrete and Noah’s Ark made of steel) as the flota- any other example. The scale of the project is also tion device. Pointe Coupee Parish and the LSU proto- the closest to the BFP and they are both single units. type used expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam blocks. As The completion of the FLOAT House in the Lower mentioned previously, the LIFT House used recapped Ninth Ward demonstrates how appropriate that neigh- water bottles in a bamboo frame for one unit. The sec- bourhood is for amphibious solutions. It also displays ond unit uses a hollow ferrocement foundation, simi- FEMA’s shifting attitude towards amphibious housing, lar to Maasbommel. The cladding for the LIFT House which may open the door to future amphibious projects dwelling units is natural hand-woven plant material.234 in North America.

In some cases, for Point Coupee Parish, flexible utility Telescoping vertical guidance posts are currently being connections are utilized. Manual disconnect is usually developed. This is an unprecedented method of achiev- used for water and sewer and umbilical connections are ing lateral stiffness and stability, specific to the BFP. It used for electrical.235 will allow for a greater height variance, up to 25 feet, concealing the post below grade during normal conditions. 244 The telescoping posts will be attached to the steel marine application may be more cost-effective initially. frame and will “telescope,” as the name suggests, However, it will require regular maintenance, increas- out of the ground during a flood. A unique connec- ing the overall cost. Polyethylene is another suitable tion between the telescoping guidance posts and steel coating material for the EPS foam blocks. Of course frame will also need to be designed. Engineering, test- another option would be to use a different material for ing and cost-analysis are required before this compo- buoyancy altogether. nent can be implemented.238 The LIFT House suggests two other buoyancy options Thermoplastic timber is being considered to replace that are cost-effective and technically feasible –a hollow the steel substructure and vertical guidance posts. The ferrocement concrete box for one unit and recapped switch to this material in place of steel will address plastic water bottles encased in a bamboo frame for the the challenge of achieving lateral stability. Among the other. Maasbommel also employs a hollow concrete more apparent benefits of thermoplastic timber and foundation to provide buoyancy for its amphibi- its resilience to moisture, it is advantageous because ous homes. Another option is a hollow steel box, as it eliminates the need for a frictionless connection for displayed in Noah’s Ark Project. However it would be the telescoping vertical guidance posts. However, it the least cost-effective solution, and needs to be coated is not a cost-effective solution when building a small to protect against corrosion. A method of stabilization number of buoyant foundations. Should the use of ther- against such lateral loads as wind and flowing water moplastic timber not be feasible, all steel components is necessary. As mentioned earlier, Maasbommel and will need to be protected against corrosion. A water LIFT House join two housing units, centrally, by shar- resistant coating for the substructure and vertical guiding a common element that counteracts lateral loads.240 ance system is required. An epoxy coating for the steel components may provide sufficient protection against Such a method of lateral stabilization could be explored corrosion and would cost significantly less than using for the BFP. Given the nature of tight-knit communities thermoplastic timber. The disadvantage of implement- in New Orleans, another option, provided the city is in ing a polymer-based coating for the vertical guidance agreement, is that two neighbours who desire to imple- posts would be that it creates too much friction as the ment buoyant foundations could connect their houses house is sliding up and down. A galvanized steel coat- using on a common platform (eg: Maasbommel’s ing is another option which would be cost-effective and amphibious houses). If this option were to become create less friction.239 permissible, vertical guidance posts could be located between the houses as well. Compartmentalizing buoyancy elements as employed by the LIFT House could provide a greater degree The Noah’s Ark Project and FLOAT House have of reliability and serviceability. However, a frame or had to specify the correct type of utility connections lightweight structure would need to be designed to required by the City of New Orleans to gain a build- encase these elements. Expanded polystyrene (EPS) ing and occupancy permit. A combination of umbili- foam is vulnerable to solvents and gasoline, which may cal and self-sealing breakaway connections is required, be excreted into floodwaters. Coating the buoyancy as currently called for in the BFP’s design, so that the elements with a fiber-reinforced concrete as utilized for system may operate passively.241 the FLOAT House would add extra protection and reliability to the EPS foam blocks. The major setback to this recommendation is the high cost involved to coat multiple small blocks. Perhaps other types of coating such as an acrylic epoxy/polymer-based paint used for

245 For architects, when designing amphibious housing, a multi-disciplinary approach is essential to arrive at the appropriate solution for a specific location. Amphibious architecture is a new typology that is in the process of being defined. It requires collaboration from a variety of disciplines to arrive at innovative strategies, as high- lighted in this chapter. The main elements common to all projects are buoyancy and vertical guidance, which may need to include lateral stabilization. Specific policies for each location provide an added design constraint, in addition to the usual constraints necessary for obtaining building and occupancy permits.

246 Chapter five discussed local and international examples of amphibious housing that are technically feasible, in relation to the Buoyant Foundation Project (BFP).

The six pertinent and completed projects discussed are as follows: Amphibious Fishing Camps in Point Coupee Par- ish, Louisiana; Amphibious Housing in Maasbommel, Neth- erlands; LSU Prototype in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Noah’s Ark Project in Lakeview, New Orleans; FLOAT House in the 05 Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans; and LIFT House in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Each provided an example of a retrofit, prototype, and/or new construction employing an amphibious foundation for housing. Full documentation was provided for each of the six projects, appearing chronologically based on the date of construction.

To conclude the chapter, a summary was provided. It outlined each project’s key features and its significant contributions to, or possible future influence on, the BFP. A chart fol- viii lows to accompany this summary, highlighting the pertinent factors of each project’s technical feasibility. Factors such as date of completion, architect, challenges, maximum height summary during flooding, size of unit, buoyancy system, major building materials and cost were visually displayed to allow for comparison and cross referencing among the six examples and the BFP.

An analysis was then provided, that discussed the common characteristics and distinctive features of each project. Com- mon to each project is a buoyancy element and vertical guidance system. Some distinctive features are the use of recapped recycled water bottles encased in a bamboo frame used for buoyancy in one unit of the LIFT House and the unique “chassis” system employed by the FLOAT House. A brief comparison was drawn between projects with two or more similar parameters; however this proved to be a challenge, due to the distinct locations, budgets and sizes of each project. Applica- tion and areas for improvement were discussed, suggesting alternative strategies to improve the BFP’s design, to make it more cost-effective and efficient. Such strategies included protective coatings for the EPS foam buoyancy blocks, compartmentalizing buoyancy elements and exploring the possibility of joining neighbouring properties to create lateral stability, among other suggestions.

247 173. Owen J. Bello, “Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisi- ana,” http://www.pcpolicejury.org (accessed Sep- tember 1, 2009).

174. Louisiana Sportsman Magazine, “Old River, Pointe Coupee,” http://www.fishinglouisiana. com/area2/#Old%20River (accessed September 1, 2009).

175. Elizabeth English, “Amphibious Foundations and the Buoyant Foundation Project: Innovative Strategies for Flood-Resilient Housing,” (paper 05 presented at the International Conference on Ur- ban Flood Management, Paris, France, Novem- ber 25-27, 2009), 4 (appendices, 412).

176. ibid.

177. James Lee Witt Associates, “Pointe Coupee Par- ish Hazard Mitigation Plan Update and Project Scoping,” July 01, 2009, 52-58, http://www. pcpjury.org/Pointe%Coupee%Parish%complete% document%07%01%09.pdf.

178. Amy Wold, “Float this House: Professor Hopes ix to Save Ambiance of N.O. Homes,” The Advo- cate, Baton Rouge, June 2, 2007, 1 (appendices, endnotes 340). 179. Waterland: Water Information Network, “Histo- ry of Dutch Water Management,” http://www. waterland.net/index.cfm/site/Water%20in%20 the%20Netherlands/pageid/CDA0E5A3-D1F5- 1767-58EECA08BC8288ED/index.cfm/water%20 history (accessed September 30, 2009).

180. Wikipedia, “Maasbommel,” http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Maasbommel (accessed September 1, 2009); and Dura Vermeer, “Amphibious and Floating Homes in Maasbommel,” http://www. duravermeerbusinessdevelopment.nl/uk/project_ info.asp?id=579 (accessed September 1, 2009).

248 181. Dura Vermeer, “Amphibious and Floating 193. Clayton DeKorne, “Floating Out the Storm: A Homes in Maasbommel,” http://www.duraver- Concept Home Designed to Resist Flood and meerbusinessdevelopment.nl/uk/project_info. Wind Rises Out of the Wreckage of New Or- asp?id=579 (accessed September 1, 2009); and leans,” Coastal Contractor (2008): 1, http:// Jonathan Glancey, “Sink or Swim: In Times of www.coastalcontractor.net/cgi-bin/article. Flood, These Houses Rise To The Occasion,” pl?id=189 (accessed September 1, 2009). http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2004/ may/24/architecture (accessed September 30, 194. Bayou Buzz Staff, “Hurricane Homes,” http:// 2009). www.bayoubuzz.com/News/Louisiana/Business/ Louisiana_Business_Shorts__Michael_Bloom- 182. Andrew Eames, “Floods without Tears,” http:// berg_Jindal_and_Economic_Development_Hur- www.telegraph.co.uk/property/3350061/Floods- ricane_Homes_Tidewater___5170.asp (accessed without-tears.html (assessed September 1, November 1, 2009). 2009). 195. DeKorne. 2008, 2. 183. Dura Vermeer, “Amphibious and Floating Homes in Maasbommel,” http://www.duraver- 196. ibid., 3. meerbusinessdevelopment.nl/uk/project_info. 197. ibid. asp?id=579 (accessed September 1, 2009). 198. ibid. 184. Glancey. 2004. 199. Nikki Buskey, “Could floating homes be on the 185. ibid. way?” Houma Today, Sunday, November 8, - 186. ibid. 2009, http://www.houmatoday.com/arti cle/20091108/ARTICLES/911089976 (accessed 187. English 2009, 7 (appendices, 412). November 30, 2009) (appendices, 340).

188. Dustin Husser, Matt Guidry, Scott Schroth, Ben 200. Morphosis, ”FLOAT House,” June 7, 2010, Morvant, Dustin Ewing, “ME 4243 Spring http://morphopedia.com/projects/float-house (ac- 2007: Buoyant Foundation,” Powerpoint pre- cessed November 1, 2009). senation for Mechanical Engineering, Louisiana State University. 201. Morphosis, “Morphosis MIR HOUSE.pdf,” 13 http://morphopedia.com/projects/float-house (ac- 189. ibid. cessed September 1, 2009).

190. ibid. 202. ibid., 13.

191. ibid. 203. ibid., 13.

192. Spatz Development, “Parade of Homes Around 204. ibid., 15. Lakeview.” www.associationevent.com/PATL/ BUILDER/spatz.pdf (accessed November 1, 205. Archinnovations, “Morphosis FLOAT House: 2009). How It Works,” December 2009, http://www. archinnovations.com/featured-projects/housing/ morphosis-float-house-how-it-works/ (accessed September 1, 2010).

249 206. Bradford McKee, “Float House,” October 6, 220. ibid. 89-147. 2009, http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=11247 (accessed September 1, 221. English. 2009, 4 (appendices, 412). 2009). 222. Personal Communication with Elizabeth Eng- 207. ibid. lish, March 2010.

208. Morphosis. 2009, 16. 223. Dustin Husser, Matt Guidry, Scott Schroth, Ben Morvant, Dustin Ewing, “ME 4243 Spring 209. Archinnovations, 2009. 2007: Buoyant Foundation,” Powerpoint presenation for Mechanical Engineering, Louisiana - 210. Personal Communication with Linda Stone, Pol State University. icy Associate for Global Green, December 2010. 224. DeKorne. 2008. 1-3. 211. Morphosis. 2009, 18. 225. ibid. 212. ibid. 226. E-Architect, “Morphosis FLOAT House Com- 213. ibid. pleted for Make It Right Foundation,” October 6, 2009, http://www.e-architect.co.uk/america/ 214. Archinnovations, 2009. make_it_right_float_house.htm (accessed Sep- 215. Prithula Prosun, The LIFT House: An Amphibi- tember 1, 2010); and Morphosis. 2009, 13; and ous Strategy for Sustainable and Affordable Archinnovations, 2009. Housing for the Urban Poor in Flood-prone 227. Prosun. 2010, 70-72. Bangladesh, Masters Thesis, (Waterloo: Univer- sity of Waterloo, 2010), iii. Prithula is defending 228. Owen J. Bello, “Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisi- her thesis on December 8, 2010, and expects to ana,” http://www.pcpolicejury.org (accessed graduate shortly thereafter. Her thesis will be September 1, 2009). made electronically available and can be accessed through the following site: http:// 229. Archinnovations, 2009. uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/6. 230. Dura Vermeer, 2009; and Personal Communica- 216. Alexandra Shimo, “Uplifting: A University of tion with Prithula Prosun, September 2010. Waterloo Architecture Student Designs Flood- Proof Buoyant Houses for her Native Bangla- 231. Prosun, 2010, 70-72. desh,” Canadian Architect 55 (2010):46 232. English. 2009, 7 (appendices, 412); and Glancey. 217. Prithula Prosun, “Innovative Flood Mitigation: 2004; and DeKorne. 2008; and McKee. 2009; Sustainable Amphibious Housing for the Urban and Prosun. 2010, 77-88. Poor in Dhaka, Bangladesh.” paper for ECOPO- 233. ibid. LIS Design Award Proposal (May 2009) in Pro- sun. 2010, 158. 234. Archinnovations. 2009; and Dura Vermeer. 2010; and DeKorne. 2008, 3; and Prosun. 2010, 218. ibid. 70-72. 219. Prosun. 2010, 70-72.

250 235. Elizabeth English, Interviewed by Charlotte Garson, French Public Radio Station in Breaux Bridge, LA, August 2008 (appendices, 384).

236. DeKorne. 2008, 3.

237. Dustin Husser, Matt Guidry, Scott Schroth, Ben Morvant, Dustin Ewing, “ME 4243 Spring 2007: Buoyant Foundation,” Powerpoint presenation for Mechanical Engineering, Louisiana State University.

238. English and Garson. 2008 (appendices, 384).

239. English. 2009, 8 (appendices, 412).

240. Prosun. 2010, 70-72; and Dura Vermeer. 2010; and DeKorne. 2008, 2.

241. Personal Communication between Bryan Spatz and Rebecca Lai, May 2010.

251 06 the buoyant foundation project: efficiency

252 efficiency:

i. introduction

ii. economy FEMA recommended flood-proofing strategies for homes in louisiana

iii. sustainability energy conservation waste reduction economic growth sustainable materials

iv. resilience cascading levees building resilience workshop

v. summary

vi. endnotes

253 Three major aspects have been identified which contribute to the efficiency of the Buoyant Foundation Project (BFP). Chapter six will discuss how the BFP is an economical, sustainable, and resilient form of flood protection.

The BFP proves to be a more economical form of flood mitigation through a cost comparison between the current government recommended strategy of permanent static elevation and the proposed amphibious foundation system. The following argument will discuss aspects that contribute to the BFP’s sustainabil- 06 ity as it serves a catalytic role for the restoration of damaged homes in post-Katrina New Orleans. Res- toration promotes energy conservation, waste reduction, and economic growth. The potential implementation of sustainable materials will also be discussed. The concluding section on resilience will address how the BFP can contribute to a resilient strategy for flood mitigation in New Orleans by providing an integral layer in flood protection in combination with other large scale, infrastructural strategies.

The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the i Building Resilience Workshop to further reinforce the concept of resilient flood protection strategies and discuss new techniques currently being used. Multidisci- efficiency plinary professionals from architecture, engineering, planning, academia and politics along with community stake holders gathered in New Orleans in Feb- ruary 2010, to discuss international urban flood protection strategies. Innovative, resilient, urban flood mitigation systems were presented, such as cascading levees and amphibious housing, that are currently being implemented in Germany and the Netherlands.

254 06 ii efficiency: economy

255 permanent static elevation = $40,000 - $60,000

fig. 231: Permanently Raised House

buoyant foundation retrofit = $10,000 - $25,000

fig. 232: House on a Buoyant Foundation

256 ECONOMY (with a maximum height of 25 feet in the event of a category 5 storm surge).245 It is more cost effective to use buoyant foundations than permanent static elevation (fig. 231, 232). As men- Figure 234 is a table which provides a detailed cost tioned earlier, permanent static elevation is currently estimate to elevate a 36’ x 36’ (1296 sq ft) one-story a method approved and recommended by the United home 10 feet above grade. The cost estimated by the States federal government as a means of flood protec- USACE is almost $ 40,000. This price increases for tion for residents in Louisiana. FEMA, and all FEMA- homes in New Orleans, due to poor soil quality and the supported organizations such as Louisiana State Uni- costs involved for stabilizing the foundation.246 versity (LSU), University of New Orleans (UNO) and The State of Louisiana Road Home Program are advo- Elizabeth English remarks, “Permanently elevated cating permanent static elevation as a ‘safe’ method to homes are vulnerable to wind damage, and elevations protect property in the event of a flood.242 are expensive. Retrofitting an existing house with a floating foundation costs up to $25,000 compared with Nikki Buskey, writer for Houma Today, reports on the $40,000 to $60,000 it can cost homeowners to ele- local resident Mark Callahan, of Terrebonne Parish in vate. Adding an elevator for elderly or disabled resi- Louisiana. He states that he would have been interested dents makes it even more expensive.”247 in installing a buoyant foundation had he been given the option before he permanently elevated his home. English estimates that $40,000 to $60,000 is a typical Buskey reports, “In bayou communities, where many range for the implementation of permanent static ele- have been forced to elevate their homes due to repeated vation. This is significantly greater than the cost to ret- flooding, that could be appealing. [Callahan] said he rofit a house with a buoyant foundation, which is in the was reluctant to elevate his home at first. He eventually range of $10,000 to $25,000.248 paid $45,000 to boost his house 11 feet. Had he been given the choice of keeping it on the ground with new It is more economical and reliable to retrofit a shotgun technology, he might have taken it.”243 style home with a buoyant foundation compared to permanent static elevation as a flood mitigation strategy. Permanent static elevation is currently one of the options recommended to residents by the United States federal government among five others outlined in figure 233. These options are expensive and unreliable forms of flood protection because none of them can guarantee that the property will be safe from flood waters that exceed the intervention’s height, and the options of relocation and demolition ignore the problem completely. The unanticipated levee failures that accompanied Hurricane Katrina proved that a ‘flood level’ cannot be predicted reliably, therefore any static option will be an insufficient method of protection. In addition, only three of the six FEMA recommended flood-proofing strategies –– elevation, relocation and demolition –– meet the minimum requirements of the NFIP.244 Implementing a buoyant foundation system will allow one’s house to rise up to the required height

257

3.0 An Overview of the

FEMAR recommendedetroﬁtting flood-proofingMethods strategies for homes in Louisiana

This guide describes six retroﬁtting methods for you to consider as you think about how to protect your home from ﬂooding:

ELEVATION – Raising your home so that the lowest ﬂoor is above the ﬂood level. You can accomplish this in several ways.

WET FLOODPROOFING – Making uninhabited portions of your home resistant to ﬂood damage and allowing water to enter during ﬂooding.

RELOCATION – Moving your home out of the ﬂoodplain to higher ground where it will not be exposed to ﬂooding.

DRY FLOODPROOFING – Sealing your home to prevent ﬂoodwaters from entering.

LEVEES AND FLOODWALLS – Building a ﬂoodwall or levee around your home to hold back ﬂoodwaters.

DEMOLITION – Tearing down your damaged home and either rebuilding on the same property or buying or building a home elsewhere.

T his chapter describes the six methods in detail. Keep in mind that only elevation, relocation, and demolition can be used to meet the minimum requirements of the NFIP. The other methods may be used to minimize damages, but are not recognized as meeting the minimum requirements of the NFIP. Remember that it is important to purchase ﬂood insurance for your home, even if you mitigate your home using one of these methods.

fig. 233: Six Ways FEMA Recommends to Protect a Home From Flooding

SIX WAYS TO PROTECT YOUR HOME FROM FLOODING

258 ELEVATION OF A 36X36 (1296 SF) ONE-STORY HOME 10 FEET ABOVE GRADE ITEM QUANTITY UNIT PRICE COST Elevation of Home 1,296 SF 12 15,552 New Concrete Pier Foundation (see note) 25 EA 190 4,750 Pier-Slab Connection 25 EA 21.2 530 Hurricane Clips 50 EA 1.5 75 Raise Water, Sewer & Gas 10 LF 28.14 281 Elevate Air Conditioner Wooden Deck 5x5, treated 25 SF 7.54 188 Extended Down spouts 1 LS 150 150 Architectural Modifications New Front Porch (see note) 36 SF 7.54 271 Wood Front Stair & Rails 10 LF 239 2,390 Concrete Stair Pad 1 EA 50 50 New Back Porch (see note) 100 SF 7.54 754 Wood Back Stair & Rails 10 LF 239 2,390 Concrete Stair Pad 1 EA 50 50 Wooden Lattice 1,440 SF 1 1,440 Painting, Decks & Stairs 150 SF 0.39 58 Painting Lattice, Spray 1,440 SF 0.14 202 New Sidewalks 30 LF 5.52 166

Subtotal 29,298

Contingencies 25% 7,325 Subtotal Construction Cost 36,623 Engineering & Design 5% 1,831 Supervision & Administration 3% 1,099

Total Construction Cost $39,552

Const. Cost Per Sq. Foot of Slab $31 NOTE: Concrete Piers, 9' c.c., 14' x 14' x 13'-10" pier in place. Includes 2' x 2' x 8" footing in place, 4 #4 bars each way. New Front Porch: Wood Deck, 6' x 6', treated 2x6 New Back Porch: Wood Deck, 10' x 10', treated 2x6

fig. 234: Detailed Cost Estimate to Permanently Elevate a Home

259 06 iii efficiency: sustainability

260 SUSTAINABILITY ENERGY CONSERVATION

The Buoyant Foundation Project (BFP) provides a sus- Embodied energy can be defined as, “The amount of tainable solution to flood mitigation through promoting energy associated with extracting, processing, manu- the rehabilitation of damaged homes and potentially facturing, transporting and assembling building mate- incorporating sustainable materials into its system. It rials.”252 is more environmentally responsible to restore and preserve existing buildings than to demolish and rebuild According to Calvin W. Carter, in a study assessing them. The BFP serves as a catalyst for the restoration energy conservation: of damaged homes in post-Katrina New Orleans. The BFP retrofits traditional wooden shotgun-style - hous Conserving buildings preserves embodied energy, and reduces the need for new ma- ing, which plays a vital role in the preservation of a terials. In the 1970s, the National Trust and neighbourhood that contributes greatly to the culture the Advisory Council on Historic Preser- of New Orleans. The BFP is also preserving a housing vation developed calculations for measur- type built from a scarce indigenous wood, the Louisi- ing the embodied energy in buildings based - on square footage and building types. . . [A ana cypress, which is no longer available for construc case study on] Grand Central Arcade in Se- tion; thus, these houses are irreplaceable. This type of attle’s Pioneer Square concluded that the wood is rot, termite and mould-resistant, which is par- Arcade embodied 17 billion BTUs (British ticularly suitable to Louisiana’s climate.249 In addition, Thermal Units of energy), and that a new building of equivalent size would require the BFP is considering the use of sustainable materials 109 billion BTUs to construct. Preserving such as thermoplastic timber and recycled, recapped the Arcade would result in an energy sav- plastic water bottles. ings of 92 billion BTUs, or 730,000 gallons of gasoline — ‘enough to power 250 auto- mobiles for 60,000 miles.’253 Rehabilitating damaged buildings promotes environmentally and economically sustainable development. This case study is one example that illustrates how According to Patrice Frye of the National Trust for preservation conserves energy. Through the reduced Historic Preservation, “The National Trust for Historic use of vital renewable and non-renewable resources, Preservation is . . . leading a national effort to develop energy is conserved, creating a sustainably responsible both the research and the policies required to support solution to post-Katrina rebuilding. the integration of historic preservation principles into the larger discourse of sustainability.” 250 WASTE REDUCTION

- Restoration promotes energy conservation, the avoid Franklin and Associates, a major consulting firm ded- - ance of additional environmental impacts, waste reduc icated to providing consulting services in life cycle - tion and the ability to curb sprawl. The concept of eco analysis and solid waste management, says “preserv- nomic sustainability refers to the general economic ing buildings reduces waste in landfills. Demolition of - impacts of preservation, including the ability to gen housing produces an average of 115 lbs of waste per erate more jobs, as well as increased economic growth 251 square foot, while demolition of commercial buildings through the conservation of natural resources. generates approximately 155 lbs of waste per square foot.”254

261 They further elaborate by providing examples of ment yields $1.7 million in GDP for preservation, and building-related waste generated in the United States. $1.6 million for new construction.”257 According to estimates provided by the Environmen- tal Protection Agency (EPA), “tremendous waste is Listokin also comments on preservation as being a generated as a result of building demolition. The EPA “powerful generator of affordable housing.”258 Accord- estimates that 136 million tons of building-related ing to him, “equity is a core tenet of sustainable devel- construction and demolition (C & D) debris was gener- opment, and affordable housing is key to achieving ated in the United States in 1996. By 2003, C & D equity. Historic buildings have often served as a valu- waste was estimated to be 325 million tons – almost a able source of affordable housing. Between the late 250% increase in just seven years. Annual construction 1970s and the late 1990s, 40,000 units of affordable and demolition debris accounts for roughly 24% of the housing were created using Historic Tax Credits.”259 municipal solid waste stream.”255 Preservation of historic buildings serves as a catalyst Waste management is imperative to reducing harm- for additional investment in communities and plays a ful effects on the environment. As landfills are over- significant role in job creation resulting in economic whelmed with waste, the mode in which waste is growth. created must be re-examined to ensure the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

ECONOMIC GROWTH

Dr. David Listokin, a professor at the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University, asserts that historic preservation is interconnected to many other industries. “Preservation does not operate within its own isolated sphere, but touches many areas of the local economy, and affects different sectors of community life,” according to Listokin. “It touches finance, real estate and government. It affects retailing, employment and tourism. It impacts the mayor, the merchant and the homeowner.”256

Listokin argues that historic preservation can spur economic development. He states, “Historic preservation spurs economic development, [whereby] preservation serves as a catalyst for additional investment in communities. . . . Preservation creates more jobs than new construction [demonstrated] by several studies and an economic input-output model developed by Carne- gie Mellon University. . . . 1998 research found that $1 million in historic preservation activity creates about 38 jobs, while $1 million in new construction of non- residential structures creates 36 jobs. The same invest-

262 SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS

The BFP is considering the use of sustainable materials for its major design components: structural grade Thermoplastic timber for the foundation’s substructure and vertical guidance system, along with recycled plastic water bottles in place of EPS buoyancy blocks. Ther- moplastic timber is a composite material made almost entirely from recycled post-consumer and industrial plastics, also known as High Density Polymer Elastics 260 fig. 235: Bridge made of Thermoplastic Timber (HDPE), resin and fiberglass (fig. 235, 236).

Thermoplastic timber is a fiber-glass reinforced plastic material that is structural-grade and can be used for load-bearing construction. Plastic lumber first emerged on the United States marketplace in the early 1990s.261 Lisa Miles Jackson of Innovative Green Solutions and Thomas J. Nosker have described the origins and benefits of thermoplastic timber. According to the authors, “the patented technologies provide products that are extremely strong and durable, flexible in design, and virtually maintenance-free. Successful demonstrations have shown that Thermoplastic timber is a viable alter- fig. 236: Thermoplastic Timber Beam native to more traditional building materials including wood, steel, and concrete.”262

Jackson and Nosker further elaborate on the nature of thermoplastic timber:

This innovative material is made entirely from post-consumer and post-industrial recycled #2 plastic and automotive scrap. It is completely inert and will not leach harmful chemicals into the soil or water. The use of this innovative technology keeps recycled plastic out of the waste stream, effectively doubling the quantity of waste this plan will divert from landfills. . . . The Rutgers experts have developed processing that uses a mini- fig. 237: Thermoplastic Dock mum amount of recycled fiberglass to achieve structural stiffness, strength, and creep resistance. The fiberglass blends thoroughly with the HDPE solution created a load-bearing product.263

263 Thermoplastic timber is resistant to moisture, rot, rust or corrosion and crumbling. It is also resistant to insects and does not degrade like natural wood (chemically treated or not) when exposed to the exterior elements (fig. 237, 238).264 Through maintaining a longer lifespan and requiring less maintenance, the amount of waste and labor costs are reduced. Compared to the use of wood, thermoplastic timber is more cost-effective and can be implemented more efficiently.265 Thermoplastic timber can withstand extreme shifts in temperature and does not biodegrade or oxidize. In terms of dura- fig. 238: Thermoplastic Timber Pilings bility, “accelerated weather testing was stopped at 50 years, demonstrating that Thermoplastic timber can last more than 50 years with minimal maintenance.”266

The longevity of this product allows for minimal replacement, ultimately producing less waste. In addition to the use of Thermoplastic timber for the BFP’s foundation substructure and vertical guidance system, the use of recycled plastic water bottles in place of EPS (expanded polystyrene) buoyancy blocks is being considered. According to the Container Recycling Institute, “eighty percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or end up in landfills.”267 Reusing fig. 239: Plastic Water Bottles Used for Flotation plastic water bottles will divert waste from landfills and provides an environmentally responsible solution for buoyancy (fig. 239, 240).

fig. 240: Plastic Water Bottle Raft

264 06 iv efficiency: resilience

265 RESILIENCE into fragile rigidities, exposing them to tur- bulent transformation. Learning, recovery and flexibility open eyes to novelty and new The Buoyant Foundation Project (BFP) is a resilient 269 worlds of opportunity. form of flood protection for New Orleans. The tragic flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina pro- Perhaps this ability to “absorb disturbance,” “reor- vided evidence that the larger issue of flood mitiga- ganize,” and adapt to change, while preserving iden- tion needs to be addressed on a local scale. Impending tity can be best observed in New Orleans. This city climate change issues affecting coastal cities interna- has retained its unique character despite devastating tionally point to the need for a re-evaluation of human- flooding and damages throughout many hurricanes. As kind’s relationship with water. The ability to coexist stated by Kevin Lynch, world renowned urban planner with water has become imperative and requires a com- and author, in Vale and Campanella’s book, The Resil- bination of innovative flood mitigation strategies on a ient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disas- variety of scales. ter, “a city is hard to kill, in part because of its strate- gic geographical location, its concentrated, persisting As noted by Craig E. Colten, in An Unnatural Metrop- stock of physical capital, and even more because of the olis: Wresting New Orleans From Nature, “the human 270 memories, motives and skills of its inhabitants.” effort to manage the environment has been a vitally important dimension in shaping New Orleans’ land- New Orleans is a resilient city, and has recovered from scape, and the landscape is the visible record of human several damaging hurricanes throughout history. In transactions with the environment.”268 addition to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it recovered from the destruction of Hurricanes Camille in 1969 and With every natural and man-made disaster to affect Betsy in 1965 through the hard work and stewardship - New Orleans, flood mitigation strategies are re-exam of its residents (fig. 241).271 ined and new strategies are implemented. It has become apparent that a resilient strategy is necessary to miti- Flood protection is more effective in a resilient system gate future flooding in New Orleans and southern Lou- where failures are smaller and more localized than in isiana effectively. an overwhelming and catastrophic event. John Lopez, Director-Coastal Sustainability Program Lake Pon- The Resilience Alliance is a research organization tchartrain Basin Foundation, suggests “the multiple including professionals from a variety of disciplines lines of defence strategy.” He states: which “explores the dynamics of complex adaptive systems.” They define resilience as: The multiple lines of defense strategy proposes that two essential elements of the ‘to jump or leap back,’ the ability to recov- Louisiana coast be managed and perpetuat- er from or adjust easily to misfortune or ed that together will sustain the coast eco- change. . . . The ability to absorb disturbanc- nomically. . . . The two planning elements es, to be changed and then to reorganize and are (1) Using natural and manmade features still have the same identity (retain the same that directly impede storm surge or reduce basic structure and ways of functioning). It storm damage (lines of defense), (2) Es- includes the ability to learn from the dis- tablishing and sustaining the coastal hab- turbance. A resilient system is forgiving of itat distribution (habitat goals). The ‘‘lines external shocks. As resilience declines the of defense’’ include the Gulf of Mexico magnitude of a shock from which it cannot shelf, the barrier islands, the sounds, marsh recover gets smaller and smaller. Resilience land bridges, natural ridges, manmade ridg- shifts attention from purely growth and ef- es, flood gates, flood levees, pump stations, ficiency to needed recovery and flexibility. home and building elevations, and evacua- 272 Growth and efficiency alone can often lead tion routes. ecological systems, businesses and societies 266 Betsy 1965

Camille 1969

Katrina 2005

Rita 2005

Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale TDTS 1 2 3 4 5 fig. 241: Paths of Significant Hurricanes which affected New Orleans

267 Erik Pasche et al., Professor of Hydraulic Engineering levee could overtop and there could be a ter- at the Hamburg-University of Technology, reinforces tiary levee system. It would be so easy to - make cascading levees of this sort in New this concept and suggests that resilient flood mitiga Orleans because we already have the bou- tion should be conceived in multiple layers, cascad- levards with what in New Orleans is called ing levees, compartmentalization and multiple overlaid the ‘neutral ground,’ which is the strip of flood mitigation strategies. Diffusion and dispersion of grass between the streets going in opposite 273 directions on either side, a boulevard. But risk will minimize the direct impact. the neutral ground is always raised, it’s always mounded and in fact there is a great The BFP could serve a catalytic role in the recovery tradition in New Orleans of whenever there and creation of a flood-resilient New Orleans. The BFP is a relatively small flood people drive their cars up onto the neutral ground so that the provides a flexible system that allows a house to adapt cars are safe and don’t get flooded in the to changing conditions in the event of a flood. The BFP streets. Well the neutral grounds, by put- is a small-scale flood mitigation strategy that could ting a mound where the streets are as well as where the grass is, those could be turned provide one of the many layers of flood protection New 274 into a secondary or tertiary levee system. Orleans will require. English remarks that implementing cascading levees CASCADING LEVEES alleviates the need for every house to be on buoyant foundations; only houses in vulnerable locations, Elizabeth English suggests the possibility of the BFP between the primary and secondary levees, would need supplementing a cascading levee system for New buoyant foundations. If that area flooded, those houses Orleans. In 2007, she spent time in the Netherlands at would float and the house’s contents would bepro- the UNESCO Living With Water Workshop, where she tected. learned about the work of German professor Erik Pas- che, who is currently developing cascading levee sys- BUILDING RESILIENCE WORKSHOP tems in Hamburg. Cascading levees and amphibious architecture were She explains in an interview with Charlotte Garson for two of many urban flood resilience strategies discussed French public radio: at the workshop entitled, “Building Resilience: Imple- menting Innovative, Sustainable Flood Mitigation Rather than having one big huge levee, which is only as strong as its weakest part, Solutions for the Gulf Coast,” held at the Old US Mint you have a series of levees. So, we could in New Orleans from February 25 to 27, 2010. The leave the existing levees in New Orleans, conference brought together an international mix of not make them any bigger, just get them all architects, engineers, planners, policy makers, commu- to the point where they are really category 3 resistant. Then behind the levees have other nity organizers and academic researchers specializing smaller levees, for example there could be a in sustainable flood protection to discuss the challenges secondary levee, behind the primary levee of living with water within cities and communities, and along Lake Ponchartrain, that went around City Park in New Orleans so that if it went institutional/government’s resistance to change for the 275 to the south of City Park — if the new sec- Gulf Coast. ondary levee was parallel to the primary levee but included an area that wouldn’t be disastrous, absolutely disastrous if it flooded, then you can let the primary levee overtop and the park would fill up with water but the land behind the secondary levee wouldn’t fill until that very large reservoir was full. And when that reservoir filled up, then that 268 English elaborates on the Building Resilience Work- • How can technical solutions be more shop: responsive to social and cultural needs and traditional ways of life? Speakers from Germany, the Netherlands and across North America came together with local leaders to discuss how non-struc- • What are both the physical and cultural tural flood mitigation strategies such as wet- implications of redesigning cities for lands restoration, cascading levee systems, increased resilience? temporary floodwalls, amphibious housing and regenerative landscaping could be implemented in the Gulf Coast region in gener- • What planning decisions can we make al and in New Orleans in particular. It was now that will help us build resilience and a primary goal of the workshop to create adaptability into our cities for the future?277 greater awareness in the Gulf Coast region of approaches that are being implemented successfully in other parts of the world The five keynote speakers were: Lt. General Russel - but may not yet be embraced in the Unit Honoré, (Ret.), Visonary leader of the New Normal and ed States. The workshop encouraged an attitude of accommodating, rather than fight- Commander of Joint Task Force Katrina; Larry S. Buss, ing, water, recognizing that we must learn to retired Chief of Hydrologic Engineering for the US live in safety WITH water.276 Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), P. E., CFM and long time Chair of the USACE National Nonstructural/ The innovative strategies presented at the Building Flood Proofing Committee; Professor Erik Pasche, Resilience Workshop were to raise local awareness. Professor for Hydraulic Engineering at the Hamburg The following key questions were addressed as a basis University of Technology; Chris Zevenbergen, Profes- for discussion: sor at the Water Engineering Department of UNESCO- IHE; and Dr. Jack Martin, a Professor in the Depart- 278 • How have international communities, ment of Technology at Appalachian State University. faced with repeated, catastrophic storm and Each of their presentations discussed local and interna- flood events, maintained physical and social tional culturally respectful strategies, which can fortify infrastructures? communities to become more flood resilient. Broader issues such as the “physical and cultural implications • What innovations have occurred in of redesigning cities for resilience” in the face of global response to catastrophic events? climate change were also explored.279

• How can mitigation strategies that The BFP is a resilient flood mitigation strategy and, diffuse risk, as opposed to concentrating when combined with other large-scale infrastructural risk, reduce a community’s overall vulner- systems such as cascading levee systems, would ability and increase its resilience? provide significantly stronger, more reliable flood protection. • How might cultures share “best prac- tices” and incorporate innovative, sustainable technologies more quickly?

• What are the successful approaches that have been used elsewhere to overcome institutional resistance to change that inhibits the implementation of new strategies?

269 The Buoyant Foundation Project (BFP) is a resilient flood mitigation strategy and, when combined with other large-scale infrastructural systems such as cascading levees, would provide significantly stronger, more reliable flood protection.

This chapter has outlined how the BFP is an efficient solution to flood mitigation through providing an economical, sustainable and resilient strategy for homeowners in New Orleans.

Cost efficiency is proven through a comparison of 06 the government recommended strategy of permanent static elevation and the proposed buoyant foundation system. The BFP is a more-cost effective solution than permanent static elevation and is effective in providing adequate flood protection for shotgun- style housing.

The BFP attempts to provide a sustainable flood mitigation solution through implementing sustainable materials and encouraging the rehabilitation of damaged homes. The aforementioned environmental and economic benefits of building preservation provide v sufficient evidence why it is sustainably more responsible than demolition and rebuilding. Energy conservation, waste reduction, job creation, affordable hous- summary ing and the use of sustainable materials are all aspects that make the BFP a sustainable flood protection strategy.

Lastly, the BFP can contribute to the creation of a more resilient flood-mitigation system for New Orleans, through its ability to adapt passively to changing conditions. The BFP is not the only strategy required to protect against flooding, rather it is intended to be part of a network of flood protection strategies on various scales. The BFP provides a small-scale solution, which, when combined with larger infrastructural methods, can create a multi-layered system. In the event of flooding, failures will become smaller and more localized rather than a single catastrophic event, as was the case with Hurricane Katrina.

270 242. Federal Emergency Management Agency, “Home- owner’s Guide to Retrofitting, Second Edition.” http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord. do?id=1420 (accessed July 30, 2010).

243. Nikki Buskey, “Could floating homes be on the way?” Houma Today, Sunday, November 8, 2009, http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20091108/ ARTICLES/911089976?Title=Could-floating- homes-be-on-the-way- (accessed November 30, 2009) (appendices, 340). 06 244. Federal Emergency Management Agency, “Home- owner’s Guide to Retrofitting, Second Edition.” http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord. do?id=1420 (accessed July 30, 2010).

245. Personal Communication with Elizabeth English on August 6, 2010.

246. USACE and the National Flood Proof Commit- tee, “Raising and Moving a Slab-on-Grade House with Slab Attached,” 1990, http://www.nwo.usace. army.mil/nfpc/fpslab/ace2_10.htm#TopOfPage, vi (accessed May 1, 2010). 247. Buskey. 2009. 1 (appendices, 340); and Elizabeth English, “Amphibious Foundations and the Buoy- endnotes ant Foundation Project: Innovative Strategies for Flood-Resilient Housing,” (paper presented at the International Conference on Urban Flood Man- agement, Paris, France, November 25-27, 2009), 7 (appendices, 412).

248. Amy Wold, “Float this House: Professor Hopes to Save Ambiance of N.O. Homes,” The Advocate, Baton Rouge, June 2, 2007, 1 (appendices, 340).

249. Elizabeth English, Interviewed by Charlotte Gar- son, French Public Radio Station in Breaux Bridge, LA, August 2008 (appendices, 384).

250. Patrice Frey, “Making the Case: Historical Pres- ervation as Sustainable Development,” October 15, 2007, www.preservationnation.org/issues/sustainabilit/additional-resources/Discussion- Draft_10_15.pdf (accessed September 30, 2009). 271 251. ibid. 257. David Listokin, Barbara Listokin and Michael Lahr, “The Contributions of Historic Preserva- - 252. Calvin W. Carter, “Assessing Energy Conserva tion to Housing and Economic Development,” tion Benefits: A Study,” New Energy from Old Housing Policy Debate 9 (1998): 456, as quoted - Buildings, (Washington: National Trust for His in Patrice Frey, “Making the Case: Historical toric Preservation, 1981), 103-104, as quoted in Preservation as Sustainable Development,” Oc- - Patrice Frey, “Making the Case: Historical Pres tober 15, 2007. www.preservationnation.org/is- ervation as Sustainable Development,” October sues/sustainabilit/additional-resources/Discus- 15, 2007. www.preservationnation.org/issues/ sionDraft_10_15.pdf (accessed September 30, - sustainabilit/additional-resources/Discussion 2009). Draft_10_15.pdf (accessed September 30, 2009). 258. ibid. 253. Booz Allen Hamilton, “Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Assessing the Energy 259. ibid., 449 Conservation Benefits of Historic Preservation: Methods and Examples,” (Washington, DC: 260. Lisa Miles Jackson and Thomas J. Nosker, - 1979), 106, as quoted in Frey, “Making the “Technology, Applicability, and Future of Ther - Case: Historical Preservation as Sustainable De- moplastic Timber,” http://igsfederal.com (ac velopment,” October 15, 2007. www.preserva- cessed September 1, 2009). tionnation.org/issues/sustainabilit/additional-re- 261. ibid. sources/DiscussionDraft_10_15.pdf (accessed September 30, 2009). 262. ibid. - 254. Franklin Associates, “Characterization of Build 263. ibid. ing-Related Construction and Demolition Debris in the United States,” (Washington: U.S. Envi- 264. ibid. ronmental Protection Agency, 1998) 2-4, as quoted in Patrice Frey, “Making the Case: His- 265. ibid. torical Preservation as Sustainable Develop- 266. ibid. ment,” October 15, 2007. www.preservationnation.org/issues/sustainabilit/additional-resources/ 267. Nalgene Community Sustainability Program, DiscussionDraft_10_15.pdf (accessed September http://www.refillnotlandfill.org/ncsp/index.html 30, 2009). (accessed September 30, 2009). 255. ibid. 268. Craig E. Colten, An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans From Nature (Louisiana: 256. Donovan Rypkema, The Economics of Historic Louisiana State University Press, 2005), 11. Preservation: A Community Leader’s Guide (Washington, D.C.: National Trust for Historic 269. Resilience Alliance, “Key Concepts,”http:// Preservation, 2005), 23 as quoted in Patrice www.resalliance.org/564.php (accessed Novem- Frey, “Making the Case: Historical Preservation ber 23, 2009). as Sustainable Development,” October 15, 2007. www.preservationnation.org/issues/sustainabilit/ additional-resources/DiscussionDraft_10_15.pdf (accessed September 30, 2009).

272 270. Kevin Lynch, Wasting Away - An Exploration of Waste: What It Is, How It Happens, Why We Fear It, How To Do It Well. New York: Random House Inc., 1991. in Vale, Lawrence and Cam- panella, Thomas, The Resilient City: How Mod- ern Cities Recover From Disaster (Oxford Press: New York, 2005), 347.

271. NOAA Coastal Services Center, http://csc-s- maps-q.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/viewer.html (accessed February 1, 2010).

272. John A. Lopez, “Multiple Lines of Defense,” Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 54 (2009): 189-190.

273. Erik Pasche et al., “Flood Mitigation Using Cascading Dike System,” paper for Forum DK- KV/CEDIM: Disaster Reduction in Climate Change 15, Hamburg, Germany, October 16, 2007, 1.

274. Elizabeth English, Interviewed by Charlotte Garson, French Public Radio Station in Breaux Bridge, LA, August 2008, (appendices, 384).

275. Elizabeth English, “Building Resilience: Imple- menting Innovative, Sustainable Flood Mitiga- tion Solutions for the Gulf Coast 2010,” http:// resilienceworkshop.org/ (accessed February 1, 2010).

276. ibid.

277. ibid.

278. ibid.

279. ibid.

273 07 the buoyant foundation project: future

274 the future:

i. introduction

ii. future of the BFP 100 block concept future considerations: use of sustainable materials

iii. timelines BFP timeline amphibious architecture timeline

iv. summary

v. endnotes

275 Chapter seven will discuss future objectives and requirements to bring the Buoyant Foundation Project (BFP) closer to completion.

A 100-block concept is discussed, analyzing the hypothetical situation if 300 houses had implemented buoyant foundations prior to Hurricane Katrina. This concept provides insight as to how the BFP may have aided in a quicker recovery of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. 07 The BFP is considering the use of a new thermoplastic composite structural grade material in place of the steel frame substructure and telescoping steel vertical guidance posts. There is also research being conducted on incorporating containers filled with recapped, recycled plastic water bottles to replace the EPS buoyancy blocks.

To conclude the chapter, a comparison of amphibious architecture and the Buoyant Foun- dation Project is provided by displaying timelines of the major milestones in the history of amphibi- i ous architecture with the progress of the Buoyant Foundation Project. the future

276 07 ii future: the BFP

277 100-BLOCK CONCEPT with possessions intact after the storm. If these 1200 residents had returned immediately after Katrina, this What if 300 residences in the Lower Ninth Ward had would have expedited the return of utilities, encour- installed buoyant foundations on shotgun houses prior aging other former residents to return much sooner. to Hurricane Katrina? In figure 242, the shaded area, Figure 244 displays the recovery of housing units per south of North Claiborne Avenue and north of St. block between North Claiborne Avenue and St. Claude Claude Avenue is the zone that the BFP has targeted Avenue in 2010. Figure 245 is a table comparing for the implementation of buoyant foundations on sin- active households receiving mail in the Lower Ninth gle shotgun residences. Figure 243 outlines 100 blocks Ward before and after Hurricane Katrina. Three years that have been identified within this zone of the Lower after Katrina, only 11% of households were receiving Ninth Ward. Residential blocks are marked in red and mail.280 Presently, only 24% of Lower Ninth Ward res- commercial or vacant blocks are marked in blue. Only idents are receiving mail, which one of the lowest per- blocks marked in red possess residences that are poten- centages for neighbourhoods in New Orleans.281 This tially suitable for retrofit with the buoyant foundation slow recovery could have been prevented by having system. Given an average house hold size of 4 persons amphibious housing in this area. Figure 246 is an aer- per shotgun house, if 3 houses per block had retrofit- ial view of a portion of the Lower Ninth Ward, south of ted their homes with buoyant foundations, 1200 resi- North Claiborne Avenue and north of St. Claude Ave- dents could have immediately returned to their homes nue, displaying the current state of housing in 2010.

buoyant foundation project

fig. 242: Focus of the BFP, Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans 278 5 10 15 4 20 25 30 9 35 14 40 19 24 45 3 29 50 8 34 55 13 39 60 44 18 23 49 65 70 2 28 54 7 33 59 75 12 38 64 43 69 80 1 17 22 48 85 6 27 32 53 74 11 58 79 90 16 37 63 95 21 42 68 26 47 84 31 52 73 89 100 36 57 78 41 62 94 46 67 83 99 51 72 56 88 61 77 66 93 98 71 82 76 87 81 92 residential lot 86 97 91 Households Activelycommercial Receiving Mail by Neighborhoodor vacant in lot New Orleans 96

Neighborhood June 2005 June 2008 June 2009 June 2010 % Recovery June 2010 Algiers Point 1,322 fig.1,351 243: The Future1,417 of the BFP, 1,429100-Block Concept 108% Audubon 7,576 7,344 7,292 7,319 97% B.W. Cooper 1,269 357 345 379 30% Bayou St. John 2,292 1,921 1,976 2,027 88% Behrman 3,878 3,697 3,832 3,670 95% Black Pearl 1,115 1,107 1,082 1,082 97% Broadmoor 3,139 2,551 2,324 2,378 76% Bywater Neighborhood 2,570 2,091 2,165 2,181 85% Central Business District 1,316 1,585 1,939 2,060 157% Central City Neighborhood 8,175 6,405 6,233 6,417 78% City Park 1,670 1,534 1,585 1,600 96% Desire Area 1,419 456 532 582 41% Desire Development 136 109 128 230 169% Dillard 2,608 1,728 1,767 2,040 78% Dixon 631 453 529 565 90% East Carrollton 2,286 2,275 2,276 2,244 98% East Riverside 1,539 1,601 1,472 1,474 96% Fairgrounds 3,091 2,843 2,919 3,000 97% Filmore 2,831 1,345 1,480 1,686 60% Fischer Project 300 294 291 292 97% Florida Area 1,351 457 523 614 45% Florida Development 460 1 2 2 0% French Quarter 4,106 3,917 3,936 3,888 95% Freret 1,014 671 789 839 83% Garden District 1,216 1,192 1,192 1,179 97% Gentilly Terrace 4,417 3,380 3,589 3,745 85% Gentilly Woods 1,512 764 906 979 65% Gert Town 1,513 1,411 1,547 1,545 102% Hollygrove 2,751 1,772 1,889 1,995 73% Holy Cross 2,240 774 1,061 1,226 55% Iberville Development 830 815 fig. 244:801 Housing Recovery646 By Block, 2010 78% Irish Channel 1,973 2,002 1,913 1,907 97% HouseholdsLake Catherine Actively Receiving Mail by Neighborhood 733in New Orleans 420 420 439 60% Lake Terrace & Oaks 688 653 657 675 98% NeighborhoodLakeshore/Lake Vista June 1,6082005 June 1,4242008 June 1,4822009 June 1,4952010 % Recovery June 201093% AlgiersLakeview Point Neighborhood 1,3224,711 1,3511,912 1,4172,358 1,4292,774 108%59% LakewoodAudubon 7,576786 7,344590 7,292593 7,319624 79%97% LeonidasB.W. Cooper 3,7261,269 3,521357 3,485345 3,288379 88%30% LittleBayou Woods St. John 16,5042,292 8,9071,921 11,3851,976 12,7512,027 77%88% LowerBehrman Garden District 4,4063,878 4,0733,697 4,2953,832 4,5423,670 103%95% LowerBlack PearlNinth Ward Neighborhood 5,3631,115 1,107601 1,0171,082 1,2711,082 24%97% MarignyBroadmoor 2,1333,139 2,0792,551 2,3242,119 2,1282,378 100%76% Marlyville/FountainebleauBywater Neighborhood 3,0102,570 2,7062,091 2,7522,165 2,7922,181 93%85% McDonoghCentral Business District 1,2701,316 1,3231,585 1,2811,939 1,2792,060 101%157% Central City Neighborhood 8,175 6,405 6,233 6,417 78% City Park 1,670 1,534 1,585 1,600 96% Desire Area 1,419 fig. 245: Households456 Actively532 Receiving Mail582 in New Orleans, 201041% Desire Development 136 109 128 230 169% Dillard 2,608 2791,728 1,767 2,040 78% Dixon 631 453 529 565 90% East Carrollton 2,286 2,275 2,276 2,244 98% East Riverside 1,539 1,601 1,472 1,474 96% Fairgrounds 3,091 2,843 2,919 3,000 97% Filmore 2,831 1,345 1,480 1,686 60% Fischer Project 300 294 291 292 97% Florida Area 1,351 457 523 614 45% Florida Development 460 1 2 2 0% French Quarter 4,106 3,917 3,936 3,888 95% Freret 1,014 671 789 839 83% Garden District 1,216 1,192 1,192 1,179 97% Gentilly Terrace 4,417 3,380 3,589 3,745 85% Gentilly Woods 1,512 764 906 979 65% Gert Town 1,513 1,411 1,547 1,545 102% Hollygrove 2,751 1,772 1,889 1,995 73% Holy Cross 2,240 774 1,061 1,226 55% Iberville Development 830 815 801 646 78% Irish Channel 1,973 2,002 1,913 1,907 97% Lake Catherine 733 420 420 439 60% Lake Terrace & Oaks 688 653 657 675 98% Lakeshore/Lake Vista 1,608 1,424 1,482 1,495 93% Lakeview Neighborhood 4,711 1,912 2,358 2,774 59% Lakewood 786 590 593 624 79% Leonidas 3,726 3,521 3,485 3,288 88% Little Woods 16,504 8,907 11,385 12,751 77% Lower Garden District 4,406 4,073 4,295 4,542 103% Lower Ninth Ward Neighborhood 5,363 601 1,017 1,271 24% Marigny 2,133 2,079 2,119 2,128 100% Marlyville/Fountainebleau 3,010 2,706 2,752 2,792 93% McDonogh 1,270 1,323 1,281 1,279 101% north caliborne avenue

st. claude avenue

246: Partial Aerial View of the Lower Ninth Ward, 2010

280 north caliborne avenue

north caliborne avenue

st. claude avenue

281 FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS: USE OF SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS

As discussed in previous chapters, the use of thermoplastic timber (fig. 247, 248) in place of the steel frame substructure and telescoping steel vertical guidance posts is currently being investigated. Thermoplastic timber does not corrode and is a more suitable material than steel for structures par- tially submerged in water.

Recapped, recycled empty water bottles in place fig. 247: Thermoplastic Timber Piling Installation of EPS flotation blocks are also being considered. Bundles of air-filled, sealed plastic bottles can provide both buoyancy and redundancy (fig. 249, 250).

Either a cavity or frame would need to be created to hold the water bottles in place, much like the N55 flotation system (fig. 251) that uses plastic modules attached to a frame to form a cohesive buoyancy element. This “Floating Platform” is part of N55’s “Spaceframe” project, completed in 2002. N55 is a multi-disciplinary design firm based in Denmark. fig. 248: Elevated Rail in Chicago Using Thermoplastic Ties Maria Alexandrescu, a student at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture, has provided the following research as part of her submission for “ARCH 684-016 Amphibious Architectures: The Buoyant Foundation Project and Alternative Flood Mitigation Strategies in Post-Katrina New Orleans.” This was an elective course held at the school in spring 2009.

According to N55:

The Floating Platform is a modular construction, which is intended to function as a buoyant foundation for N55 Space- frame (see manual for N55 Spaceframe), or for other lightweight constructions. . . . The Floating Platform is a space lattice, comprised of small modules made from stainless steel with built-in buoyant tanks. The small modules in the platform can all be assembled by hand. . . . fig. 249: Water Bottle “Junkraft”

282 The modular system facilitates gradual extensions and makes the platform less vulnerable to damage; for example, leaks only have local impact and can be repaired locally. . . . The platform draws approximately 1.2 meters when loaded. . . is constructed as an “octet truss” space lattice (see Manual for N55 Spaceframe) and is shaped as an equilateral triangle. 189 polyethylene tanks make the platform buoyant. They are concentrated in the three pontoons situated in each corner of the platform. The pontoons are constructed from fig. 250: Capped Water Bottle Raft 3 layers of tanks and are shaped as tetrahedra with one vertex pointing downwards and a plane facing upwards.282

The Floating Platform provides an example of a modular buoyancy system using the geometry of an “octet truss” to provide a light-weight, rigid frame. The plastic compartments can be easily serviced and maintained without causing a major failure to the entire system. (See pages 327-329 in the appendices for further information on the N55 Floating Platform).

This design principle was implemented by Prith- ula Prosun for the buoyancy elements of the LIFT House. Figure 252 is a photograph taken on the site of fig. 251: Flotation Platform by N55 Prithula Prosun’s LIFT House. She utilized bundles of recapped plastic water bottles in plastic bags for buoyancy blocks for one of the full-scale built pro- totypes of her amphibious housing. Like the plastic compartments of the Floating Platform, these bundles act as modules that can be serviced individually without disrupting the whole system.

On the following pages, figures 253 and 254 display timeliness of the major milestones of amphibious architecture and the BFP.

fig. 252: Plastic Water Bottles Used for Testing Prior to Construction of the LIFT House

283 07 iii future: timelines

284 BFP timeline

1975

1986

2005

hurricane katrina struck new orleans, louisiana

2006

elizabeth engish founded the BFP

amphibious foundations in point coupee parish documented by dustin ewing (LSU student) 2007

first prototype at LSU completed trip to Netherlands and participation in UNESCO living with water conference (elizabeth english and LSU students stuart broussard and scott schroth )

2008

amphibious foundations research began at university of waterloo 1315 lamanche street house gutted ready for implementation development of the BFP identity and website

2009 development of phases 1 & 2 to comply with FEMA and NFIP regulations amphibious architecture course at uw school of architecture

thermoplastic timber and recycled water bottles as sustainable materials were introduced for the project

2010 building resilience workshop held in new orleans

the buoyant foundation affiliates with the center for ecosystem and resilience adaptation (ERA) at university of waterloo

2011 building resilience workshop 2 in new orleans

2012 fig. 253: BFP Timeline

285 amphibious architecture timeline

1975 dr. john michael vlach published phd on the louisiana shotgun house in document entitled ‘sources of the shotgun’ amphibious fishing camps at pointe coupee parish began design and construction 1986 herman hertzberger designed his first floating house ‘watervilla’ using a foam-filled concrete base for buoyancy - he refined that design for a second attempt, completed in 2002 in the town of middelburg.

2005

hurricane katrina struck new orleans, louisiana

2006

amphibious housing project completed in the netherlands at maasbommel by factor architecten and dura vermeer construction led by chris zevenbergen

2007

BFP prototype completed and tested at LSU noah’s ark project completed, first engineered amphibious house built in the united states in lakeview, new orleans by spatz developments 2008 actor brad pitt launched the make it right foundation to build 150 green, affordable, high-quality design homes in the lower ninth ward, new orleans

2009

FLOAT house completed - first fully permitted amphibious house in new orleans designed by morphosis architects for the make it right foundation 2010 LIFT house by prithula prosun completed in dhaka, bangladesh

2011

2012 fig. 254: Amphibious Architecture Timeline

286 This chapter has outlined significant future considerations that will carry the project into the next phase of investigation.

The 100-block concept provides insight as to how neighbourhoods may recover more quickly after catastrophic flooding. If buoyant foundations had been implemented on just 300 homes, at least 1200 residents may have returned to their former homes immediately after the storm and could have expedited the return of utilities and services, enabling the return of 07 more residents. The implementation of materials such as Thermoplas- tic timber and recapped recycled water bottles could improve the overall sustainability of the project, however further investigation is required.

Lastly, the BFP has been progressing simultaneously with many significant amphibious architectural projects as illustrated in the adjacent timelines. Since the BFP was founded in 2006, the amphibious homes in Maasbommel, Netherlands, the amphibious house in Lakeview, New Orleans, the FLOAT House in the iv Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans, and the LIFT house in Dhaka, Bangladesh, have been completed and are providing effective flood mitigation both locally and summary internationally.

287 280. Allison Plyer, “Neighborhood Recovery Rate Re- siliency of New Orleanians Shown in Neighbor- hood Repopulation Numbers,” http://www. gnocdc.org/RecoveryByNeighborhood/index.html (accessed July 1, 2010).

281. ibid.

282. N55, “Manual for Floating Platform,” http:// www.n55.dk/MANUALS/FLOAT_PLAT/ FLOAT_PLAT.html (accessed September 1, 07 2009). v endnotes

288 08 the buoyant foundation project: conclusions

289 CONCLUSIONS viable or practical response. Permanently elevating a home is costly, inconvenient, and heightens the risk of Climate change is an urgent matter and it has become wind damage during future hurricanes. It also destroys critical to reevaluate humankind’s relationship with neighbourhood character by disrupting the relationship water. Flood mitigation strategies for coastal cities of house to street and does not foster a culture of social world-wide must be reconceived to accommodate the interaction. The BFP recognizes the importance of a flux in climate. Flexible, multi-layered systems that street-level front porch and its role in maintaining New can adapt to changes in sea level are imperative. Pas- Orleans’ tight-knit community culture. sive systems, which operate both statically and dynam- ically when required, are needed to accommodate the The BFP provides a culturally sensitive, technically dynamic relationship between land and water. feasible, economical, sustainable and resilient form of flood protection for residents of the Lower Ninth Ward Classic methods implemented to “control” water have in post-Katrina New Orleans. This low-impact flood caused further damage to New Orleans. Infrastructure mitigation strategy promotes the restoration of exist- used to prevent flooding has disrupted the city’s nat- ing shotgun homes through their retrofit with buoyant ural defense system by inhibiting silt deposition and foundations using cost-effective and sustainable mate- replenishment of the natural levee system. Ground- rials. It enables them to float during a flood. The BFP water pumping has increased the rate of subsidence. is currently the only strategy that addresses the tech- Hurricane Katrina revealed the inadequacy of USACE nical, safety-related, environmental and socio-cultural designed flood protection systems, where artificial sys- aspects of flood protection simultaneously. tems used to manage water ultimately failed. The BFP supports the local culture and restoration of The importance and necessity of an alternative flood the physical habitat. The shotgun house plays an inte- protection system is apparent. The tragic aftermath gral part in shaping the distinctive cultures in New of Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the inadequacy of Orleans by contributing to the strengthening of tight- the United States federal government’s hurricane pro- knit communities and reinforcing the sense of place. tection system. Multiple levee failures, a lack of pre- The lack of interior privacy created by the absence of paredness, insufficient aid and the slow return of utili- separated circulation space, coupled with the utiliza- ties delayed the recovery of New Orleans, particularly tion of the front porch as a social realm, has fostered a the Lower Ninth Ward. This neighbourhood was one culture of social interaction in the Lower Ninth Ward of the most severely damaged yet recoverable areas and other similar New Orleans neighbourhoods. of New Orleans. Many homes were salvageable and could be suitable for retrofit with buoyant foundations. Local and international precedents prove the technical Residents surveyed from the Lower Ninth Ward have feasibility of amphibious foundations. On a local scale expressed a strong desire to return home despite the at Pointe Coupee Parish, Lakeview and the Lower tragic events of Katrina. It is hoped that implementa- Ninth Ward, and on global scale in the Netherlands and tion of the BFP will convince residents that they can Bangladesh, different variations of amphibious foun- return to their former neighbourhoods in safety. dation systems have been constructed in vulnerable flood-prone locations. The BFP’s goal is to provide an affordable solution for homeowners to protect their possessions and enable The retrofitted, pre-manufactured mobile homes that the return of residents after a flood. The current solu- comprise the amphibious fishing camps on Raccourci tion promoted by the United States federal govern- Old River in Pointe Coupee Parish (some of them in ment recommends or requires permanent static eleva- existence for more than 30 years) inspired the basic tion for homeowners in flood-prone areas. It is not a 290 system configuration and materiality of the BFP. Engi- The LIFT House is another international example of neered design, aesthetic modification and code compli- the technical and economic feasibility and appropriate- ance are necessary for implementation in an urban set- ness for a low-income population in Dhaka, Bangla- ting. desh. Prithula Prosun, a masters student at the Univer- sity of Waterloo School of Architecture, designed and The amphibious housing at Maasbommel is a modern built an amphibious house, which may serve to inform engineered solution. It was the first known and widely the BFP on the implementation of sustainable materi- publicized example of modern amphibious housing, als and the acceptance of the concept and feasibility. gaining exposure as a type. It demonstrates feasibility of concept and the appropriateness of amphibious The BFP is a more economical form of flood protec- architecture for a low-lying flood-prone region. tion than permanent static elevation, as it is more cost- effective to implement. It also provides a higher level The LSU Hurricane Center prototype was a full-scale of flood protection than permanent static elevation partial prototype of the BFP system that demonstrated because as it is able to adapt to changing flood levels. its functionality. Mechanical Engineering students Through the retrofit of existing structures with buoy- built a platform on a buoyant foundation to test for sta- ant foundations, less waste and energy are consumed in bility, and LSU Hurricane Center students completed comparison to new construction. The BFP contributes the prototype by building a house frame and a flood to the creation of flood-resilient neighbourhoods in tank around the platform to carry out flood tests. The New Orleans by providing a flexible system that allows prototype proved that the BFP system works with an a house to adapt to changing conditions when flooding observed flood test in a controlled testing facility. This occurs. It serves as a small-scale intervention, one of example revealed areas for improvement directly relat- the many layers of flood protection necessary to pro- ing to the BFP. vide New Orleans with greater resilience to flooding.

Noah’s Ark Project in Lakeview, New Orleans, was the To achieve the BFP’s commitment to providing cost- first legally permitted, modern engineered home con- effective, alternative flood protection will require inno- structed in North America with an amphibious founda- vative methods of funding to enable the project’s com- tion. It demonstrates the feasibility and appropriateness pletion and implementation. Students, volunteers, spon- of this concept for New Orleans. Although it is neither sors, partners, and affiliates have all collaborated both a shotgun house nor a retrofit, it demonstrates similar locally and nationally in bringing the project to its cur- technical aspects to the design of a buoyant foundation. rent state. It uses vertical guideposts and sleeves similar to the LSU Hurricane Center prototype and has had to tackle Much effort is still required to achieve the comple- zoning and permitting issues. tion of a full-scale buoyant foundation in the Lower Ninth Ward. However, as public awareness continues The recent completion of Morphosis’ FLOAT House to grow, and with an increasing number of interna- made ground breaking progress as the first home to tional amphibious projects, the BFP team is confident implement an amphibious foundation in New Orleans that successful implementation of the Buoyant Founda- and receive an occupancy permit. The FLOAT House tion Project is likely in the near future. paves the way politically, opening the door for local opportunities, and has played a significant role in addressing FEMA and NFIP objections to implementing the BFP.

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Throsby, David. “Sustainability in the Conservation of the Built Environment: An Economists’ Perspective.” The Getty Conservation Institute, 2003.

Tucker, Sheryl G. “Reinnovating the African-American Shotgun House.” Places 1 (1995):64-71

Townsend, Frances. “The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/reports/katrina-lessons-learned.pdf. (September 1, 2009).

United States Army Coprs of Engineers and the National Flood Proof Committee. “Raising and Moving a Slab- on-Grade House with Slab Attached.” 1990. http://www.nwo.usace.army.mil/nfpc/fpslab/ace2_10. htm#TopOfPage. May 1, 2010.

United States Census Bureau, Population Division. “County Total Population and Estimated Components of Population Change: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2009.” From a compilation by the GNO Community Data Center. http://www.gnocdc.org. (June 1, 2010).

302 United States Department of Commerce, NOAA/NESDIS. “Hurricane Katrina: A Climatological Perspective.” http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2005atlan.shtml. (September 1, 2009).

United States Department of Homeland Security. “The 18-Month Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina -Progress Made and Lessons Learned.” http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house/house07ch109.html (September 1,2009).

United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Policy Development and Research. “Current Housing Unit Damage Estimates, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.” http://www.huduser. org/publications/destech/GulfCoast_HsngDmgEst.html. (September 1, 2009).

United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform.“Sifting through Katrina’s Legal Debris: Contracting in the Eye of the Storm.” http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house/house07ch109. html. (September 1, 2009).

Upton, Dell and John Michael Vlach (eds). Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1986.

Upton, Dell. “Understanding New Orleans’ Arhitectural Ecology.” In Eugenie Ladner Birch and Susan M. Wachter (eds). Rebuilding Urban Places after Disaster : Lessons from Hurricane Katrina. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

Vale, Lawrence and Thomas Campanella. The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Vlach, John Michael. By the Work of Their Hands: Studies in Afro-American Folklife. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1991.

---. “Sources of the Shotgun: African and Caribbean Antecedents for Afro-American Architecture.” (Volumes I and II) PhD. Diss., Bloomington: Indiana University, 1975.

---. “Shotgun Houses.” Natural History 86 (1977):51–57.

---. “The Shotgun Houses: An African Architectural Legacy.” In Dell Upton and John Michael Vlach (eds). Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1986.

Waterland: Water Information Network. “History of Dutch Water Management.” http://www.waterland.net/index.cfm/site/Water%20in%20the%20Netherlands/pageid/CDA0E5A3-D1F5- 1767-58EECA08BC8288ED/index.cfm/water%20history. (September 30, 2009).

Wikipedia. “Maasbommel.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasbommel. (September 1, 2009).

303 Wold, Amy. “Float this House: Professor Hopes to Save Ambiance of N.O. Homes.” The Advocate, Baton Rouge. June 2, 2007 (appendix v).

Websites

A1 Tarps, www.a1tarps.com/assets/File/pressreleases2007.pdf Bureau HansVenitiuizen, “Amphibious Living”. http://www.amfibischwonen.nl/index2-e.html Dismal World Blog, http://www.dismalworld.com/disasters/hurricane_katrina.php Flikr, http://www.flikr.com Federal Emergency Management Agency, www.FEMA.gov Geophysical Research Company, http://www.grcamerada.com/ Google Earth, http://earth.google.com Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, http://www.gnocdc.org/ Innovative Green Solutions, http://www.igsfederal.com/thermoplastic-timber-durability.html Louisiana Geographic Information Center, http://lagic.lsu.edu/hurricanes.htm Manual for Floating Platform, http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/FLOAT_PLAT/FLOAT_PLAT.html Nalgene Community Sustainability Program, http://www.refillnotlandfill.org/ncsp/index.html National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, US Department of Commerce NOAA/NESDIS, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2005/katrina.html Panoramio, http://www.panoramio.com Resilience Alliance, http://www.resalliance.org/564.php Shotgun House, http://bywater.org/about-bywater/architecture/shotgun-house/ Shotgun House, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_house The Buoyant Foundation Project, Dr. Elizabeth English. http://www.buoyantfoundation.org United States Army Corps of Engineers, http://www.tec.army.mil/echarts United States Coast Guard: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, http://www.uscg.mil/lantarea/ United States Coast Guard: Atlantic Area, http://www.uscg.mil/lantarea/HurricaneInfo/Default.htm United States Department of Commerce NOAA/NESDIS, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2005/katrina.html United States Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/waste/calculators/ReCon_Online.html United States Geological Survey, http://www.usgs.gov/ Waterland: Water Information Network, http://www.waterland.net/index.cfm/site/Water%20in%20the%20 Netherlands/pageid/CDA0E5A3-D1F5-1767-58EECA08BC8288ED/index.cfm/water%20history World Alliance for Citizen Participation, http://www.civicus.org Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_house

304 Precedent References:

Pointe Coupee Parish:

Old River, Pointe Coupee. 1999-2009, http://www.fishinglouisiana.com/area2/#Oldpercent20River Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, http://www.pcpolicejury.org

Maasbommel:

Factor Architecten, http://www.factorarchitecten.nl/ Gouden Kust, http://www.goudenkust.nl/ Dura Vermeer, http://www.duravermeer.nl/

Morphosis MIR House:

DeZeen, Design Magazine, http://www.dezeen.com/2008/01/23/housing-for-new-orleans-by-david-adjaye- morphosis-mvrdv-shigeru-ban-and-others/ E-Architect, http://www.e-architect.co.uk/america/make_it_right_float_house.htm Morphopedia, http://morphopedia.com/projects/float-house Dwell, http://www.dwell.com/articles/morphosis-float-house-for-nola.html

Amphibious House in Lakeview:

Bayou Buzz, http://www.bayoubuzz.com/News/Louisiana/Business/Louisiana_Business_Shorts__Michael_ Bloomberg_Jindal_and_Economic_Development_Hurricane_Homes_Tidewater___5170.asp

Lower Ninth Ward References:

Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, www.gnocdc.org Lower Ninth Ward Blog, http://kathyprice.typepad.com/dispatch_from_new_orleans/lower_ninth_ward/ Make It Right, http://www.makeitrightnola.org/ NOLA Masterplan, http://www.nolamasterplan.org/ Rebuilding the Ninth, http://www.rebuildingtheninth.org/resources/ The Brookings Institute, http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2007/08neworleansindex.aspx

305 Appendix Bibliography

Beitiks, Moe. “Eco Art: Swoon’s ‘Junk Rafts’.” http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/04/04/eco-art-swoon-swimming-cities/

Flesche, Felix, and Christian Burchard. Water House. New York: Prestel, 2005.

International Marine Floatation Systems Inc. “International Marine Floating Structures.” http://www. floatingstructures.com/menu.php?id=1

Floating Neutrinos. “Floating Neutrinos.” http://www.floatingneutrinos.com/

Asia Forest Network. “Flood Forests, Fish, and Fishing Villages - Tonle Sap, Cambodia.” http://www.asiaforestnetwork.org/pub/pub49.pdf

Frye, Northrop. Bush Garden : Essays on the Canadian Imagination. Toronto: Anansi, 1971.

Algalita Marine Research Foundation. “Junk Raft.” Junk Blog. http://junkraft.blogspot.com/

O’Reilly Media, Inc. “Junkboat Fleet : The Miss Rockaway Armada,” Make: Technology on Your Time Blog.” http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2006/07/junkboat_fleet_the_miss_r.html

Ochsenschlager, Edward. “Life on the Edge of the Marshes.” http://www.laputanlogic.com/ articles/2004/04/14-0001.html

Mellin, Robert. Tilting: House Launching, Slide Hauling, Potato Trenching, and Other Tales from a Newfoundland Fishing Village. New Jersey: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003.

N55. “Manual of Floating Platform.” http://www.n55.dk/N55_BOOK_PDF/N55BOOK.pdf

Asian Development Bank.“Preparing the Chong Kneas Environmental Improvement Project.” http://www.adb.org/Documents/TACRs/CAM/36176-CAM-TACR.pdf

Saieh, Nico. “Floating House/MOS Architects.” http://www.archdaily.com/10842/floating-house-mos/

SWOON. “Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea.” http://www.switchbacksea.org

---. “Swimming Cities of Serenissima.” http://www.swimmingcities.org

Winston International. “The Winston Land-Locked Floating House.” http://www.floodproofhousing.com/home.html,

45 Amazing and Incredible Artificial Islands. “Uros Islands.” http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/45-amazing-and-incredible-artificial-islands/weird-science 306 the buoyant foundation project: appendices

307 appendix i

primitive amphibious architecture

308 This section was provided by Prithula Prosun as her submission to “ARCH 684-016 Amphibious Architec- tures: The Buoyant Foundation Project and Alterna- tive Flood Mitigation Strategies in Post-Katrina New Orleans,” an elective course held at the University in spring 2009.

HALONG BAY, VIETNAM

Located North East of Vietnam in Quang Ninh province, Halong Bay is a group of offshore islands that is the best example of marine invaded tower karst in the world. The bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Floating villages surround many of the islands. fig. 255: Location Vietnam These villages are small communities of local residents, many of who never lived on solid ground. Most of Halong bay’s local inhabitants make their living by fishing. There are currently four fishing villages within the World Heritage protected area, with around 1600 inhabitants who live on floating houses and boats. Each village is made up of approximately 7-10 floating homes constructed out of bamboo and various woods. The houses remain permanently buoyant and are inhabited throughout the whole year. The house floats on empty air drums attached to the underside of a wood frame that creates the foundation. The floating structures are not just for residential use. There are also floating electric generators and disco centers within the village (fig. 255-258).1

fig. 256: Halong Bay, Vietnam

fig. 257: Floating House, Halong Bay, Vietnam fig. 258: Floating House, Halong Bay, Vietnam 2

309 AGUSANAGUSAN MARSH,MARSH, PHILIPPINESPHILIPPINES

AgusanAgusan MarshMarsh isis aa vast vast complexcomplex ofof freshwaterfreshwater marshesmarshes andand watercourses watercourses with with numerous numerous lakes lakes and and ponds ponds in in thethe upperupper basinbasin of of the the Agusan Agusan River. River. SomeSome partsparts ofof thethe marshmarsh are are used used for for traditional traditional fish fish pondsponds andand ricerice paddies.paddies. TheThe sitesite actsacts asas storagestorage forfor rainrain waterwater andand reducesreduces thethe immediateimmediate downstream downstream flow flow ofof floodflood waterwater intointo ButuanButuan City.City. This This marsh marsh is also is also a UNESCO a UNESCO world world heritage heritage site. site. Agusan Marsh is a primitive fishing village with- Agusanout access Marsh to electricity.is a primitive The fishing floating village village without of Agusanaccess tomarsh electricity. is a grass The rootsfloating solution village to of problems Agusan causedmarsh is by a grassexcessively roots solution fluctuating to problems tidewaters caused and by frequent excessively earth- fluctuatingquakes. Houses tide onwaters the and shore frequent are at earthquakes. risk of destruction, Houses fig.fig. 235:259: LocationLocation PhilippinesPhilippines onwhile the shore the floating are at risk village of destruction, can respond while to the the floating risks of villagethe environment. can respond The to thetiny risks community of the environment. of mostly ethnic Manobos has made their permanent homes deep within Thethe marsh,tiny community living on floatingof mostly homes. ethnic TheManobos small houseshave mademade their of bamboo permanent and homes nipa lashed deep towithin hard the wood marsh, logs, livingfreely onrise floatingor fall with homes. the level The of the small marsh houses itself. The made of bamboomarsh provides and nipa virtually lashed to everything hard wood thelogs, Manobos freely rise need or fall(fig. with 259-263). the level2 of the marsh itself. The marsh provides virtually everything the Manobos need.

fig.fig. 236:260: FloatingFloating House,House, AgusanAgusan MarshMarsh

fig.fig. 237:261: FloatingFloating House,House, AgusanAgusan MarshMarsh 22

fig.fig. 238:262: FloatingFloating House,House, AgusanAgusan MarshMarsh 33 fig.fig. 239:263: FloatingFloating House,House, AgusanAgusan MarshMarsh 4 4

231310 CHONG KNEAS, CAMBODIA CHONG KNEAS, CAMBODIA

Chong Kneas is the major boat-landing site connecting Chong Kneas is the major boat-landing site connecting - SiemSiem Reap Reap with with the the Tonle Tonle Sap Sap Lake. Lake. It is aIt popularis a popular tran sittransit route. route. When Whenthe lake the is lake at its is highestat its highest level, alllevel, trans- all - shipmenttrans-shipment activities activities and most and of most the Chong of the Kneas Chong popula Kneas tionpopulation are concentrated are concentrated around Phnomaround Kraom,Phnom anKraom, isolated an rockyisolated outcrop rocky rising outcrop about rising 140 about m above 140 them aboveotherwise the 3 flat terrain. 1 otherwise flat terrain.

ChongChong Kneas Kneas consistsconsists ofof 77 fishingfishing villages,villages, 6 of which areare made made up up of of floating floating houses.houses. TheThe floatingfloating villagesvillages are alsoalso some some of of the the mostmost ethnicallyethnically diversediverse inin Cambodia.Cambodia. AlthoughAlthough Cambodia’s Cambodia’s richest richest natural natural resource, resource, the float the- - ingfloating villages villagesare some areof the somecountry’s of poorestthe country’s commu poorest nities.communities. The constant The constant seasonal seasonal movement movement is costly is costly to theto the villagers, villagers, who who must must pay pay for for towing towing and and repairs repairs to fig. 264: Location Cambodia fig. 240: Location Cambodia theirto their vessels, vessels, which which together together account account for fora large a large part part of theirof their annual annual expenditure. expenditure. The water The wateris filled is filledwith float with- ingfloating trash, trash,rotting rotting organic organic matter, matter, fuel fueland andoil, oil,making making it hazardousit hazardous to itsto itsinhabitants. inhabitants.4 2

TheThe floating floating villagesvillages movemove toto thethe basebase ofof PhnomPhnom Kraom whenwhen thethe waterwater levellevel isis highhigh in the lake. lake. InIn thethe dry season,season, the the villages villages anchoranchor inin aa smallsmall inletinlet atat the edge ofof the the lake, lake, where where there there is is access access toto fishingfishing groundsgrounds and somesome protectionprotection fromfrom storms.storms. TheThe woodenwooden houseshouses are builtbuilt upon upon mats mats of of bamboo,bamboo, metalmetal drumsdrums or boat hulls, suchsuch that that the the front front veranda veranda floatsfloats aa metermeter oror so above the water.water. Villages Villages move move not not only only vertically vertically up andup and down down but alsobut also laterally laterally several several kilometers kilometers back back and and forth forth asas the Tonle Sap lake contracts and expands. 3 5 fig.fig. 241:265: FloatingFloating Church,Church, CambodiaCambodia Tonle Sap Lake contracts and expands (fig. 264-269).

fig.fig. 266: 242: ChongChong KneasKneas Village,Village, CambodiaCambodia fig. 267:243: Floating House,House, ChongChong Kneas,Kneas, CambodiaCambodia

311232 fig. 268: Floating House, Chong Kneas, Cambodia 2

fig. 269: Floating Village, Chong Kneas, Cambodia 3

312 IRAQI MARSH VILLAGES IRAQI MARSH VILLAGES LOCATION:IRAQI IraqMARSH VILLAGES CREATORS:LOCATION: IraqMa’dān peoples, and the Beni Hassa n The Ma’dān peoples, and the Beni Hassann created CREATORS:the Iraqi Ma’dān Marsh peoples, Villages. and These the Beni are floatingHassa villages These in carvings the marshes of floating of the Euphrates. dwellings These date marshes back have to Ancient SumerianThese been carvings times. disappearing These of floating are with floating thedwellings various villages dams date in the built backmarshes on theto of theAncient Euphrates.SumerianEuphrates. times. The marshes These6 are have floating in more villages recent in the time marshes disappeared of the withEuphrates. the various The marshes dams built have on in the more Euphrates. recent time 4 disappeared 4 with the variousReed dams huts built in Euphrates on the Euphrates. flood plain. View from water. We went up the Euphrates all “Reed huts in Euphrates flood plain. View from water. We went morning. It is the most curious sight. The “Reed huts in Euphrates flood plain. View from water. We went fig. 246: Iraqi Marsh Villages, Iraq up the Euphrateswhole all country morning. is underIt is the water, most the curious villag sight.- The fig. 246: Iraqi Marsh Villages, Iraq up the Euphrates all morning. It is the most curious sight.- The fig. 270: Iraqi Marsh Villages, Iraq whole countryes, iswhich under are water, mainly the notvillages, sedentary, which but are no mainly not sedentary,whole country butmadic, nomadic,is under are water, builtare built onthe floatingvillages,on floating which piles piles are of reed ofmainly reed notmats, mats, anchored to palm trees, and locomo- sedentary, but nomadic, are built on7 floating piles of reed mats,5 anchored to tionpalm is trees, entirely and by locomotion boat. is entirely by boat.”5 anchored to palm trees, and locomotion is entirely by boat.” Since 1968,Since these 1968, villages the Government have been hasslowly slowly eradicated eradicated by the Since 1968, these villages have been slowly eradicated by the Governmentthese villages though irrigation though irrigation plans, diversions plans, diversions of water of and Government though irrigation plans, diversions8 of water and damming.water 6 and damming (fig. 270-272). damming. 6 MI’DANMI’DAN MI’DAN

Mi’dan villages were sometimes built directly in the Mi’danMi’dan villagesvillages were sometimes builtbuilt directlydirectly in in the the marshes marshes on platformsmarshes or onislands platforms they orconstructed islands they of alternate constructed layers of of on platformsalternate or layers islands of theyreed constructedmats or reeds of and alternate silt. Bitumen layers of reed mats or reeds and silt. Bitumen has always been used as reed matshas alwaysor reeds been and used silt. asBitumen a material. has Reedsalways grew been every used- as a material. Reeds grew everywhere in the marshes and were a material.where Reeds in the grewmarshes everywhere and were in considered the marshes the andcheap were- considered the cheapest building material. Mud-brick structures consideredest building the cheapest material. building Mud-brick material. structures Mud-brick were structures very fig.fig.fig. 247: 271:247: Iraqi IraqiIraqi MarshMarshMarsh House,House,House, Iraq IraqIraq were very rarely as they required the services of professional were veryrarely rarely as they as they required required the theservices services of ofprofessional professional builders and were quite expensive. Family members could buildersbuilders and were and quite were quiteexpensive. expensive. Family Family members members could build pise (compressed or packed mud) houses without any build pisecould (compressed build pise (compressed or packed mud)or packed houses mud) without houses any assistance but still used them as a status symbol. assistancewithout but stillany usedassistance them asbut a stillstatus used symbol. them as a status TheThe typicaltypical househouse was usually aa littlelittle moremore than than 2 2 meters meters wide, wide, symbol. The typical house was usually a little more7 7 aboutabout 66than metersmeters 2 meters long, andwide, a littlelittleabout lessless 6 meters thanthan 3 3 meters long,meters and high. high. a little

less than 3 meters high.9

fig. 272: Interior of a Reed Hun Iraq fig.fig. 248: 248: Interior Interior of of a a ReedReed Hut,Hut, Iraq Iraq 234 313234 Houses built of reeds had the additional advantage of Houses built of reeds had the additional advantage of Housesbeing builtportable. of reeds In the had spring, the additional if the marsh advantage waters ofrose being portable. In the spring, if the marsh waters rose beingtoo high,portable. a five-arched In the spring, raba ifcould the bemarsh taken waters down, rosemoved too high, a five-arched raba could be taken down, moved tooto high, higher a five-arched ground, and rabare-erected could inbe lesstaken than down, a day. moved Reed to higher ground, and re-erected in less than a day. Reed to dwellingshigher ground, could and last re-erected for well in over less 25 than years, a day. and Reed mud dwellings could last for well over 25 years, and mud dwellingsdwellings could for two last or for more well generations over 25 years, with andproper mud care dwellingsdwellings for for two two or8 ormore more generations generations with with proper proper care care and maintenance.8 andand maintenance. maintenance.10 BENI HASSAN BENIBENI HASSAN HASSAN fig. 273: Beni Hassan fig. 249: Beni Hassan fig. 249: Beni Hassan Beni Hassan are dwellings with walls of mud lumps or of Beni Hassan are dwellings with walls of mud lumps or of Benipise. Hassan When are the dwellings structure with was walls situated of mud alongside lumps aor canal of pise. When the structure was situated alongside a canal pise.or irrigationWhen the channel,structure it was was situated made of alongside lumps of a mudcanal set or irrigation channel, it was made of lumps of mud set or onirrigation edge in channel,herring-bone it was pattern. made Eachof lumps lump of consisted mud set of on edge in herring-bone pattern. Each lump consisted of ona edgeshovelful in herringbone of mud, and pattern. its plano-convex Each lump shape consisted which of resulteda ashovelful shovelful from of the ofmud, mud,form and of and itsthe plano-convexitsshovel plano-convex paddle. shape9 shape, which 9 whichresulted resulted from from the form the formof the of shovel the shovel paddle. paddle (fig. 273-275).11

fig. 250:274: Beni Hassan Interior fig. 250: photosBeni Hassan from Interior1916 photosphotos from from 1916 1916

fig. 251:275: Beni Hassan 32 235 fig. 251: Beni Hassan 3 314235 LAKEFLOATING TITICACA ISLANDS ON LAKE TITICACA, PERU

The Uros Uros people people are are a group a group of pre-Incan of pre-Incan people people who wholive onlive Lake on LakeTiticaca Titicaca in Peru. in FloatingPeru. Floating islands islands are made arefrom made dried from totora dried reeds. totora The densereeds. roots The thatdense the roots plants thatdevelop, the plants interweave develop, to forminterweave a natural to layerform calleda natural layerKhili (about called one Khili to (abouttwo meters one thick) to two that meters support thick) the thatislands support and are the anchored islands and with are ropes anchored attached with to ropes sticks attacheddriven into to thesticks bottom driven of intothe lake.the bottom The reeds of the at thelake. Thebottom reeds of theat the islands bottom rot of away the islandsfairly quickly, rot away so fairly new quickly,reeds are so constantly new reeds added are toconstantly the top. After added about to the30 top.years, After the reeds about beneath 30 years, begin the to reeds rot, and beneath the islands begin tomust rot, be and rebuilt. the islandsFor sewage must treatment be rebuilt. residents For sewage use fig. 276:252: Floating Islands, Lake Titicaca, Peru treatment‘outhouse’ residentsislands near use the ‘outhouse’ main islands, islands and near the ground the mainroot absorbs islands, the and waste. the ground Larger root islands absorbs house the about waste. 10 Largerfamilies, islands while house smaller about ones 10 (about families, 100 while feet wide), smaller 10 oneshouse (about only 2 100or 3. feet wide), house only 2 or 3 (fig. 276-277).12

fig.fig.253: 277: Floating Islands, Lake Titicaca, Peru 2

315236 Endnotes

1. “Ha Long Bay,” http://www.worldheritagesite.org/ sites/halongbay.html (accessed August 1, 2009).

2. “Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary,” http://www. thailandsworld.com/index.cfm?p=421 (accessed August 1, 2009)

3. “Preparing the Chong Kneas Environmental Improvement Project,” http://www.adb.org/Documents/ TACRs/CAM/36176-CAM-TACR.pdf (accessed August 1, 2009).

4. “Flood Forests, Fish, and Fishing Villages - Tonle Sap, Cambodia,” http://www.asiaforestnetwork.org/pub/ pub49.pdf (accessed August 1, 2009).

5. ibid.

6. “Life on the Edge of the Marshes,” http://www. laputanlogic.com/articles/2004/04/14-0001.html (accessed August 1, 2009).

7. ibid.

8. ibid.

9. ibid.

10. ibid.

11. ibid.

12. Life in the Fast Lane, http://www.lifeinthefastlane. ca/45-amazing-and-incredible-artificial-islands/weird- science (accessed August 1, 2009).

316 appendix ii canadian floating + amphibious architecture

317 This section was provided by Andre Arsenault as his submission to “ARCH 684-016 Amphibious Architectures: The Buoyant Foundation Project and Alternative Flood Mitigation Strategies in Post-Katrina New Orleans,” an elective course held at the University in spring 2009.

INTRODUCTION

The History of human beings living on water goes back to prehistoric times. Their floating or fixed habitations generally took one of three main forms; pile dwellings, rafts, or ships.13 - Fleche and Burchard

The following study is intended to comprehend the amphibious nature of structures found in the contempo- rary Canadian landscape, and to reflect on the relationship of architecture to the search for a distinctive Cana- dian identity. Three key regions of Canada (Newfound- land, Ontario and B.C.) have been selected to represent the diverse Canadian answer to the question of how one lives on water. The quotations and photography selected will provide a visual response to the question of what constitutes Canadian Amphibious Architecture.

fig. 278: Floating Dwelling Sketch

318 TILTING, NEWFOUNDLAND

Located on a remote island, Tilting has managed to remain close to its fishing origins and keep its connection with water through architecture that is at the same time simple and a clever response to the rugged landscape surrounding it. Originally used as a common shared space, the harbour which houses the village, spawned intricate interwoven boardwalks and fishing stages that upon reviewing; clearly demonstrate a vernacular fig. 279: Floating House, Tilting NFL response to the complicated question of how to bridge land and water for human activities (fig. 278-282).14

Robert Mellin states:

From wherever they caught their fish, Tilting men brought it home to their fishing stages. James Candow aptly describes fishing stages as amphibious structures ‘which served as a bridge between land and sea’. He notes their obscure ancestry and their architectural form, characterizing them as enclosed wharves, or hybrids of wharves and ships, similar in fig. 280: Floating Dock, NFL 2 structure to the ‘North American Iroquoian longhouse and the Beothuk smoking or drying house for fish and game.15

Mellin further comments on Tilting’s topography in relation to housing form,

In Tilting the topography does not influence house form. The house has autonomous value and its relation to its site is enigmatic. . . . The immediate site is nearly ignored in the placement of the house, and houses are placed in gardens or on rocks in what appears to be fig. 281: Floating House, Tilting NFL 3 a casual manner. Houses rarely go beyond a tentative acknowledgment of their site, such as fitting a foundation skirt to the rocks, extending a porch with a bridge, or placing an ornamental garden adjacent to the house.16

fig. 282: Floating House, Tilting NFL 4

319 ONTARIO PLACE

At first glance, Ontario would seem an unlikely location as a landlocked province to enter into this discussion. However, with its great lakes and large population bases along shorelines, two interesting examples of amphibious architecture may be chosen to represent the two interdependent cultural movements of Ontario: the first as a national response to its growing global presence, and the second as a common retreat of summer cottag- ers on the southern edge of the province (fig. 283-286). fig. 283: Ontario Place Elevated Walk, Canada

Eberhard Zeidler, architect of Ontario Place comments,

Ontario Place started as the fulfillment of a promise by the Ontario Government to replace the outdated Ontario Exhibition Build- ing in the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. . . . The result was five pods, or exhibition pavilions amid the 46 acres of manmade islands in the lagoon. These pods are modules that are approximately 750 sqm in area, three storeys high, and can be combined and joined into many forms. The pods are light high-tech steel construction, much fig. 284: Ontario Place, Canada like oil derricks, using the minimal amount of material to “float” above the lake.17

He further states,

The three-story pavilions hang from four central pylons, in the manner of a suspension bridge, with wire-hung trusses for structural stability. The facade of white-coated steel and glass conceals a skeleton frame on a cru- ciform basis with protruding corners and in- tersections for connecting bridges.18

fig. 285: Ontario Place, Canada 2

fig. 286: Ontario Place, Canada 3

320 LAKE HURON COTTAGE

Lake Huron Cottage was designed by Michael Mere- dith and Hilary Sample of MOS architects in 2005 (fig. 287-291). They explain:

This project intersects a vernacular house typology with the site-specific conditions of this unique place: an island on Lake Huron. The location on the Great Lakes imposed complexities to the house’s fabrication and fig. 287: Lake Huron Cottage, Lake Huron, Ontario construction, as well as its relationship to site. Annual cyclical changes related to the change of seasons. . . cause Lake Huron’s water levels to vary drastically from month-to-month, year-to-year. To adapt to this constant, dynamic change, the house floats atop a structure of steel pontoons, allowing it to fluctuate along with the lake.19

They further comment on construction materials and fabrication techniques:

Lake Huron as a waterway. Construction materials were instead delivered to the contrac- fig. 288: Lake Huron Cottage, Model tor’s fabrication shop, located on the lake shore. The steel platform structure with incorporated pontoons was built first and towed to the lake outside the workshop. On the frozen lake, near the shore, the fabricators constructed the house. The structure was then towed to the site and anchored. In total, between the various construction stages, the house trav- eled a total distance of approximately 80 km on the lake.20

fig. 289: Lake Huron Cottage, Plan

fig. 290: Lake Huron Cottage, Upper Level Plan fig. 291: Lake Huron Cottage, Section

321 BRITISH COLUMBIA

Situated at the complete opposite end of the country from Newfoundland, the roots of its architecture speak of a completely different relationship with the landscape and its influence. Originally sought out for its resources, British Columbia has become somewhat of a flagship example of western lifestyle and its environmental approach. As noted in some of the web material found about the floating villages of the Vancou- fig. 292: British Columbia, Ladner Community ver Delta area, the architecture is an example of lifestyle choices more so than any other sort of reasoning (fig. 292-295).

BRITISH COLUMBIA LADNER COMMUNITY

According to International Floating Homes:

Founded in 1882, Ladner is the oldest of Delta’s communities. Located on rich farm- land at the mouth of the Fraser River, its ag- riculture and fishing industries are a con- fig. 293: British Columbia, Floating House tinuing tradition in a diverse community that is now home to 20,000 residents. Lad- ner Village boasts several turn of the century heritage buildings, still in use. . . . Float- ing homes on the Fraser River add a distinctive feature to this community.21

fig. 294: British Columbia, Floating House 2

fig. 295: British Columbia, Floating House 3 322 BRITISH COLUMBIACOLUMBIA LOG LOG FLOATS FLOATS BRITISH COLUMBIA LOG FLOATS BRITISH COLUMBIA LOG FLOATS “InAccording Northwestern to Flesche British and Columbia, Bruchard, where the vast forests have“In Northwestern made timber British a major Columbia, industry, where there the have vast alwaysforests have“In Northwestern made timber British a major Columbia, industry, where there the have vast alwaysforests been floatingIn Northwestern houses. Log British Cabins Columbia, - built on rafts where as camps the have made timber a major industry, there have always forbeen the floatingvast families forests houses. of the have lumberjacks... Log made Cabins timber - Inbuilt former aon major rafts times, as indus campsthese- campsforbeen the floatingtry, familiesconsisted there houses. of have of the ten lumberjacks...always Logto twenty Cabins been rafts - floating Inbuilt builtformer on of raftshouses. times, thick as cedarcampsthese Log campsfor theCabins familiesconsisted - ofbuilt of the ten onlumberjacks... to rafts twenty as camps rafts In builtformer for ofthe times, thick families cedarthese trunks,of with the alumberjacks. life expectancy . . of. In some former twenty-five times, these years, trunks,camps consistedwith a life of expectancy ten to twenty of somerafts built twenty-five of thick cedaryears, and werecamps moved consisted from one of tenarea to to twentythe next rafts as the built forests of fig. 265: British Columbia, Log Floats fig. 265: British Columbia, Log Floats wereandtrunks, were thick cleared. with moved cedara lifeBut from expectancy withtrunks, one the area with march of to some a the of life next progress...twenty-five expectancy as the forests people years, of fig. 265: British Columbia, Log Floats arewereand morewere some cleared. movedwilling twenty-five But fromto with travel one the years, arealonger march toand distancesthe of nextwere progress... as tomoved the work. forests people from As one area to the next as the forests were cleared. thearewere mobilitymore cleared. willing of But these to with travel camps the longer marchis no longerdistances of progress... as importantto work. people Asas theare mobilitymoreBut willingwith of thesethe to marchtravel camps longerof is progress.no longerdistances as. . importanttopeople work. are Asas fig.fig. 296: 272: BritishBritish Columbia,Columbia, LogLog Floats it oncemore was, willing they grow to travel bigger longer and more distances fully equipped.to work. fig. 272: British Columbia, Log Floats Cityitthe once mobility dwellersAs was, the ofthey mobilityin thesesearch grow camps of ofbigger rural these is tranquilitynoand camps longer more is asfullyhave no important longerlongequipped. since as as fig. 272: British Columbia, Log Floats discoveredCityit once dwellersimportant was, the they in floating search as grow it once of bigger ruralweekend was, tranquilityand they homemore grow asfullyhave anbigger longequipped.alternative sinceand todiscoveredCity a more dwellersmore land-bound thefully in floating search equipped. holiday of ruralweekend City cottage, tranquility dwellershome but ashave now inan search longtheyalternative sinceneed of rural tranquility have long since discovered 20the nottodiscovered a gomore without land-bound the suchfloating creature holiday weekend comfort cottage, home as but electricity.”as now an theyalternative need notto a gomorefloating without land-bound such weekend creature holiday home comfort cottage, as anas but electricity.” alternative now they need to20 a more land-bound holiday cottage, but now they20 Clearlynot goneed without there not is such a go relationship withoutcreature suchcomfort with creaturewater as electricity.” in Canada comfort that as Clearly there is a relationship with water in Canada that is as diverseelectricity as is [fig. the population296-298].22 and culture of Canada. AlthoughisClearly as diverse there three as is veryisa relationshipthe separate population andwith and distinctwater culture in cultures Canada of Canada. were that Althoughis as diverse three as veryis the separate population and and distinct culture cultures of Canada. were selected,Clearly thereit is clear is a thatrelationship an underlying with desire water to in work Canada with that waterselected,Although and it threeland is clear havevery that createdseparate an underlying a uniqueand distinct Canadiandesire cultures to work response werewith is as diverse as is the population and culture of Canada. towaterselected, the andtype it landofis clearsite have context. that created an Inunderlying athe unique case Canadianofdesire Newfoundland to work response with a Although three very separate and distinct cultures were verytowater the temporary andtype landof site haveand context. unsurecreated In footing athe unique case speaks Canadianof Newfoundland of a continual response a selected, it is clear that an underlying desire to work with renewalveryto the temporary type of ofconnection site and context. unsure with In footing landthe case and speaks ofmaterials Newfoundland of a continual used. As a water and land have created a unique Canadian response to politicalrenewalvery temporary ofcentre connection ofand Canada, unsure with Ontario footingland and speakssets materials itself of ahigh continual used. above As fig. 266: British Columbia, Log Floats 2 fig. 273: British Columbia, Log Floats 2 politicalrenewalthe type ofcentre connectionsite ofcontext. Canada, with In Ontario theland case and setsof materials Newfoundland itself high used. above As a very fig. 266: British Columbia, Log Floats 2 fig. 297: British Columbia, Log Floats2 the water line and ships in its prefabricated solution fig. 273: British Columbia, Log Floats 2 thepoliticaltemporary water centre lineand unsureofand Canada, ships footing inOntario its speaks prefabricated sets of itself a continual high solution above renewal fig. 266: British Columbia, Log Floats 2 fig. 273: British Columbia, Log Floats 2 to create an almost imposing figure on water. British Columbiatotheof createconnectionwater anlineseems almost withand to ships land imposinghave andinfound its materials figure prefabricated a semi-permanence on used. water. solutionAs politicalBritish withtoColumbiacentre create its of use Canada, anseems of almost the nativetoOntario imposinghave materials setsfound figureitself surroundinga semi-permanencehigh on above water. it. theEver British water withColumbialine itsand use shipsseems of the in nativetoits haveprefabricated materials found surroundinga solutionsemi-permanence toit. createEver an the struggling to define itself, Canadian Amphibious Architecturethewithalmost strugglingits imposinguse ofseems the to figurenative define to represent materials on itself, water. the surrounding CanadianBritish overall Columbia culturalit. Amphibious Ever seems iconictheArchitectureto have struggling metaphor found seems a to semi-permanenceof definea mosaic,to represent itself, instead thewith ofCanadian aoverall itssingle use nationalofcultural Amphibious the native identity.iconicArchitecturematerials metaphor surrounding seems of a mosaic,to it.represent Ever instead struggling the of aoverall single to definenationalcultural itself, identity.iconicCanadian metaphor Amphibious of a mosaic, Architecture instead ofseems a single to representnational the identity. “Theoverall famous cultural Canadian iconic problemmetaphor of of identity a mosaic, may insteadseem a of a rationalized,“Thesingle famous national self-pityingCanadian identity. problem or made-up of identity problem may to seem those a whorationalized,“The have famous never self-pityingCanadian had to meet problem or it, made-up or of have identity problemnever may understood to seem those a rationalized,who have never self-pitying had to meet or it, made-up or have problemnever understood to those thatNorthrop it was Frye there comments to be met... on The Canadian question identity, of identity is fig. 274: British Columbia, Log Floats 3 thatwho ithave was never there had to beto meetmet... it, The or havequestion never of understood identity is fig. 274: British Columbia, Log Floats 3 primarily a cultural and imaginative question... Identity primarilythat it was a therecultural to beand met... imaginative The question question... of identity Identity is fig.fig. 298: 274: British British Columbia,Columbia, LogLog FloatsFloats 3 is localThe and famous regional, Canadian rooted problem in the imagination of identity and may in worksisprimarily localseem of and culture...”a cultural a regional, rationalized, 21and rooted imaginative self-pitying in the imaginationquestion... or made-up Identity and in 21 fig. 267: British Columbia, Log Floats 3 worksis localproblem of and culture...” regional, to those rooted who inhave the never imagination had to andmeet in fig. 267: British Columbia, Log Floats 3 it, or have never21 understood that it was there to works of culture...” be met. . . . The question of identity is primari- fig. 267: British Columbia, Log Floats 3 244 - 244 ly a cultural and imaginative question. . . . Iden tity is local and regional, rooted in the imagina- 244 23 323 tion and in works of culture. Endnotes

13. Felix Flesche and Christian Burchard, Water House (Munich; New York: Prestel. 2005), 13.

14. Robert Mellin, Tilting; House Launching, Slide Hauling, Potato Trenching, and Other Tales from a Newfoundland Fishing Village (Princeton Architectural Press, 2003), 162.

15. ibid., 50.

16. ibid.

17. Eberhard Zeidler, “Composition of Oceanic Architecture,” Process Architecture Series 96 (1993): 36.

18. Felix Flesche and Christian Burchard, Water House (Munich; New York: Prestel. 2005), 22.

19. Nico Saieh, “Floating House/MOS Architects,” Arch Daily, December 29, 2008, http://www.archdaily. com/10842/floating-house-mos/ (accessed July 23, 2009).

20. ibid.

21. “International Marine Floating Structures,” June 30, 2009, http://www.floatingstructures.com/menu. php?id=1 (accessed July 23, 2009).

22. Felix Flesche and Christian Burchard, Water House (Munich; New York: Prestel. 2005), 68.

23. Northrop Frye, Bush Garden : Essays on the Canadian Imagination (Toronto: Anansi, 1971), i-iii.

324 appendix iii floating structures of recycled materials

325 FLOATING STRUCTURES OF RECYCLED MATERIALS

This section was provided by Maria Alexandrescu as her submission to “ARCH 684-016 Amphibious Archi- tectures: The Buoyant Foundation Project and Alterna- tive Flood Mitigation Strategies in Post-Katrina New Orleans,” an elective course held at the University in spring 2009.

It is useful to reference non-architectural floating precedents as means to provide insight into non-traditional fig. 299: Junk Rafts floating methods and materials. These boats often re-use everyday objects such as plastic water bottles as flotation devices. Brooklyn-based street artist SWOON is the creator of Junk Rafts, which are crafted from construction site cast-offs and recycled scraps. These eclectic floats are a cross between a stage-ship and art-raft. These ‘eco-art’ ships are envisioned, by SWOON, as a mani- festation of “bits of land broken off and headed to sea.” The vessels are the result of the creative efforts of a host of collaborators, including Lisa D’Amour and Chicken John Rinaldi (fig. 299-302).24

SWOON’s fleets are The Miss Rockaway Armada (2006-2007), which followed the Mississippi, and The fig. 300: Junk Rafts 2 Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea (2008), which rode the Hudson and the current Swimming Cities of Sereni- ssima that set sail in the Adriatic Sea from Slovenia to Venice in May 2009. While previous rafts by the vaga- bond Floating Neutrinos have actually crossed the Atlan- tic, Swimming Cities will keep its travels to the bends of canals, rivers and seas. Each incarnation of the boat- fig. 301: Junk Rafts 3 circus seems to sharpen its aesthetic, so we’re excited to see what floats downstream next.25

The boats are crafted of foam and plywood, like two coffins filled with scrappy foam. The design is pontoon- based; the water that the pontoon displaces has somewhere to go, and that place is called a displacement hull. The boats resemble a floating dock, and are very sturdy and stable in the water. The bigger the boat, the less the chop affects it. The boats are by design not waterproof; the water fills the pontoons and the foam ensures they fig. 302: Junk Rafts 4 float.26 326 SWOON comments on the engines used for Junk Rafts,

For propulsion, I use Mercedez 240 D diesel engines. Four speeds. I pull the engine out of the car but leave the front tires on. The front tires then become the bearing that allows me to pull the propeller out of the water. The engine sits in a cradle called a 5th wheel. It’s the thing you see in the back of a pick-up truck for a horse trailer. I just got a few of those and modified them. You literally move the entire engine module to steer the craft. fig. 303: Junk Rafts 5 If you look, you can imagine how it works. It’s ridiculous, amazing and totally functional. No one has ever done anything quite like it. It’s not an out-board or an in-board. I call it: the ON-BOARD.24

Two Volkswagen Rabbit diesel engines converted to run on waste vegetable oil will power the propeller. The motors will have an al- ternator from a police car that will keep our deep cell batteries charged (so we can have things like lights) [fig. 303-304].27

Dr. Marcus Eriksen, Joel Paschal and Anna Cummins in the United States are the creators of another type fig. 304: Junk Rafts 6 of Junk Raft or ‘Eco-Mariner.’ In response to the accumulation of plastic trash in the seas, the “raft is 30 feet long, built on six pontoons filled with 15,000 plastic bottles,” the “deck is made of salvaged sailboat masts,” the “cabin is the fuselage of a Cessna airplane” and “the vessel has four sails and can make 90 degrees headway into the wind.” After nearly three months at sea, sailing 2,600 miles from Los Angeles to Hawaii, none of the 15,000 plastic bottles have shown much sign of wear and tear, demonstrating the incredible durability of the plastic that washes into the sea (fig. 305-306).28 fig. 305: Junk Rafts 7 N55 FLOATING PLATFORM

The Floating Platform by N55 was created in Denmark as a buoyant foundation for the N55 Space Frame, or for other lightweight constructions. The Floating Platform is a modular construction space lattice, composed of small modules made from stainless steel with built-in buoyant tanks. The small modules in the platform can all be assembled by hand. The platform draws approximately 1.2 meters when loaded (fig. 307-309).29 fig. 306: Junk Rafts 8 327 TECHNICAL BACKGROUND:

Floating systems that lie still in the water most of the time have other requirements than ships and barges that have to be stable during navigation. For example, stability can be obtained without ballasting, thereby reducing the use of materials. In addition, construction methods that normally are not used on water can be applied. The floating system can also be shaped according to the intended usage. The Floating Platform has comparatively low net buoyancy. This is an economic advantage, but limits the amount of weight that can be added to the platform. fig. 307: N55 Floating Platform However, the modularity of the platform offers the possibility to add more buoyancy when there is a need for it: extra tanks may be connected to the sides of the platform, material may be put into the cavities in the steel truss and extensions can be made from the same building system. Toilets, and tanks for water and wastewater, can be integrated in ways that do not add load to the construction.30

CONSTRUCTION AND BUOYANCY: fig. 308: N55 Floating Platform- Detail The platform is constructed as an “octet truss” space lattice and is shaped as an equilateral triangle. A total of 189 polyethylene tanks make the platform buoyant. They are concentrated in the three pontoons situated in each corner of the platform. The pontoons are constructed from three layers of tanks and are shaped as tetrahedra with one vertex pointing downwards and a plane facing upwards. The tanks are made from low-density polyethylene. fig. 309: N55 Floating Platform 3 They are built into tetrahedra of stainless, acid-resistant steel, which are assembled into a coherent “octet truss” space lattice. The buoyancy of the tanks is reduced at low temperatures because they are made of flexible material (there is an approximated 10 percent difference between zero and twenty degrees Celsius).31

328 Due to the stronger buoyancy in the pontoons, leverage MAINTENANCE: creates a strain towards the centre. This is compensated for by reinforcing the platform with a sidepiece consisting Neither the steel nor the tanks are treated; they need of an extra layer of struts. The cavities between the tanks no other maintenance other than regular checking. in the steel truss create turbulence, and thus the effect of The construction can be lifted up in order to check the waves is reduced when they meet the platform. The thoroughly for corrosion and leaks. The zinc blocks must triangular shape also adds stability as the platform floats be exchanged when the zinc is gone. The plywood deck on three “points.” Boards are attached to the steel truss must be checked regularly for damage, and the damp and plates of birch plywood are fastened on top of them. seal on the edges must be maintained. Boards of birch The plywood functions both as a deck and a floor. It also plywood are fixed with bolts to the node points of the contributes to the stabilization of the lattice construction. construction. The boards are treated against dampness The top construction is fixed directly onto the wood as with epoxy and light primer. The top construction is well as with bolts through the wood to the platform. The fixed directly onto the wood as well as with bolts through space lattice in the platform is constructed from a steel the wood to the platform.34 type that is the most durable in brackish water, on the condition that plants and algae will grow on it. However, Technical specifications: galvanic currents will cause sporadic corrosion on the steel unless measures are taken. Zinc blocks are Dimensions: attached to the steel with a maximum distance of one Sides 8.4 m, Area approx. 40 m, Height: 1.5 m. metre. Zinc is a more reactive metal than stainless steel Buoyancy in platform: 7,500 kg. and will therefore provide sacrificial protection. Using Total weight of the construction: 5,500 kg. this method, one should be able to avoid any corrosion Net buoyancy: 2,000 kg. of the steel.32 Tanks: buoyancy / tank at 20°C: 44.8 l. At 0°C: 41.3 l.35

WIND LOAD AND MOORING:

The construction as a whole is stable and safe in heavy weather, including hurricanes, provided that it is well moored. The maximum load on the large sides is 3,000 kilograms horizontally and 300 kilograms vertically in a wind of 33 m/s (i.e. hurricane conditions). To secure the construction under these conditions, it should be moored from each corner with strength of 3.3 tons and an angle of 12 degrees. There are mooring chains fixed around two of the node points in each corner of the platform. Two bruce-anchors hold one of the corners and the other two are moored to bollards on land. The tanks are concentrated in the corners of the platform. In order to increase the buoyancy it is possible to attach extra tanks. The tanks can also be used for wastewater, sewage and other purposes.33

329 FLOATING NEUTRINOS

A group called The Flying Neutrinos (fig. 310-311) created another version of the Junk Raft in the USA. “A raft, by definition, floats because the materials with which it has been made are all floatable materials. In the case of all the Neutrino rafts, we used mainly recycled wood, logs, Styrofoam and polyure- thane foam. Other floatables we have used include empty plastic jugs and bottles, cork and basically anything that floats.”36

The Son of Town Hall is the name of their raft. It is fig. 310: Floating Neutrinos self-righting because all the weight is in the bottom quarter of the entire raft, including very heavy logs. The top part of the raft is very light, and so it auto- matically comes back upright if it is tipped.37

All of our rafts conform to the standards of international regulations about discharge of all kinds. The regulations are very specific; for example, no plastic material of any kind can be discharged over- board at any time from any vessel. Toi- let facilities are regulated according to distance from shore, and accordingly the rafts are equipped both with holding tanks for shore side pump out, and also for over- board discharge where permitted on the high seas.38 fig. 311: Floating Neutrinos 2

330 Endnotes

24. Moe Beitiks, “ECO ART: SWOON’s ‘Junk Rafts’,” April 4, 2009, http://www.inhabitat. com/2009/04/04/eco-art-swoon-swimming-cities/ (accessed July 29, 2009).

25. “Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea,” http:// www.switchbacksea.org (accessed July 29, 2009).

26. “Swimming Cities of Serenissima,” http://www.swimmingcities.org (accessed July 29, 2009).

27. “Junk Raft,” http://junkraft.blogspot.com/ (accessed July 29, 2009).

28. “Junkboat Fleet: The Miss Rockaway Armada,” http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2006/07/ junkboat_fleet_the_miss_r.html (accessed July 29, 2009).

29. “Manual of Floating Platform”, http://www.n55. dk/N55_BOOK_PDF/N55BOOK.pdf (accessed July 30, 2009).

30. ibid.

31. ibid.

32. ibid.

33. ibid.

34. ibid.

35. ibid.

36. “Floating Neutrinos,” http://www.floatingneutrinos.com/ (accessed July 30, 2009).

37. ibid.

38. ibid. 331 appendix iv

the winston land-locked floating house

332 THE WINSTON LAND-LOCKED FLOATING HOUSE (WLFH)

Paul Winston, Chief Executive of Winston International, has worked in the house manu- facturing field for over 50 years. In the last four decades he has been actively engaged in the development of ‘The Winston System’ of fac- tory-built housing. This system was designed by architect Ron R. Campbell. Winston Inter- national has developed a new concept in modular homes, specifically designed for areas that experience flooding. Winston has pat- When flood waters roll in, foam-filled tubes and concrete- ented a new technology for its invention: The anchored telescoping steel piers will keep this modular house dry. Land-Locked Floating House (WLFH). As the After the flood, the house settles back onto the wooden pilings. flood waters rise, the Land-Locked Floating fig. 312: Diagram of WLFH House is gently and safely lifted up off its pil- CONSTRUCTION ings. The house is anchored in place, while in the flotation mode. As the flood water recedes, Winston comments on the construction techniques used for the and the danger passes, the new anchoring sys- WLFH: tem also guides the house, as the water lowers - it back onto the pilings. This patented technol The construction techniques employed in the Win- ogy has been designed by professional archi- ston Modular Home are unique in their structural in- tects, marine and structural engineers (fig. tegrity. The foundation system is composed of four 312-318).39 vertical laminated beams, blocked and fastened to the floor joist system. The foundation and the joist system are then locked together with steel post ten- Winston summarizes how the WLFH system sion rods. The steel rods make the foundation and the works: floor joist system one structural unit. The system is so strong that a finished house can be lifted with a crane from four points on the side of the foundation. The The system is composed of tele- house is then set on nine pressure treated pilings. The scoping piers set in concrete an- wooden piling is nine inches in diameter and eight to chors supporting a catamaran flotation base attached to one, two, or ten feet long. It is driven into the ground, to a distance dictated by the soil density. Under dry conditions, the three storey buildings. These struc- 41 tures will rise above any recorded pilings act as a leveling system. flood, and float back to their original positions as the flood recedes. FLOTATION SYSTEM This technology has been ful- - ly tested by accredited testing lab Winston discusses the flotation system: oratories using computer testing methods. Test results state that ‘any The first flotation device consisting of expanded foam Winston house can be analyzed for insulation is installed between the floor joists. A any geographical area to withstand three foot thick second flotation member joined - di floods up to five feet above the re- 40 rectly to the first flotation assembly is attached to the corded 500 year level.’ underside of the house. As flood waters reach the bottom of the flotation system the home begins to rise. The house continues to rise as the flood level increases protecting the interior contents from damage.42

333 fig. 313: WLFH in ‘Normal’ Position fig. 314: WLFH in ‘Floating’ Position

HOW IT WORKS Winston’s Land-Locked Floating House. Below are statements from FEMA summarizing their evalua- Winston explains how the WLFH flotation system tion of the project. FEMA initially viewed the Win- works: ston Floating House with hostility. Eventually, after a series of meetings in Washington, DC, it became clear - The home is set on nine pressure treated pil that some within FEMA viewed the Winston House as ings connected to vertical laminated beams. a threat to the thrust of their new policy direction. Win- Under dry conditions the pilings act as a foundation system supporting the house on ston comments: the ground. In addition to the pressure treated pilings four or more steel piers are locat- To date, FEMA has not supported the con- ed at the outer corners of the house and concept of floating home flood proofing tech- nected to the vertical laminated beams. The nologies because they do not meet the Con- bases of the piers are encased in concrete so gressional intent of the Conference Report the steel piers serve as both anchors and sta- of the NIFRA. FEMA believes that the un- tion guides when the house is in the flotation derlying concepts supporting floating home mode. Each pier contains two or more lu- technologies raise serious technical con- bricated telescoping sections; a leveling sta- cerns. This report concludes that any flood- bilizer assembly has been incorporated in- proofing technology that relies on mechan- to the system. When a flood occurs the tub- ical processes to provide flood protection, ing segments nestled inside each other al- such as WI’s floating home system, cannot low the house to rise with the water. Elec- be as effective as the permanent elevation trical, water, sewer and gas lines are manu- of a structure. In summary, FEMA has de- ally disconnected from the house. Optional termined that floating home systems are not back up systems are designed into the hous- as effective as a permanently elevated struc- ing unit for emergency use including a sep- ture built in conformance with the NFIP re- tic holding tank. Fresh water is contained quirements. The basic tenets of the NFIP in a ‘freshwater’ tank. A small generator call on Federal, State and local governments system maintains lights, utilities and appli- to ensure that when people choose to devel- ances. When flood water recedes, the house op flood prone areas, that such development guided by the telescoping piers, settles back occurs in a manner that limits future dam- onto the foundation.43 ages and minimizes risks of deaths and in- juries to building occupants and the public at large. This technology is not consistent FEMA’s EVALUATION OF WLFH with these basic tenets of floodplain management nor the requirements of the Act.44 Currently, FEMA does not support the efforts of Paul

334 fig. 315: WLFH System, Axonometric image from: http://www.floodproofhousing.com/howitworks/viewthebasicstructuraldesign.html

335 fig. 316: WLFH System, Plan image from: http://www.floodproofhousing.com/howitworks/viewthebasicstructuraldesign.html image from: http://www.floodproofhousing.com/howitworks/viewthebasicstructuraldesign.html

336 fig. 317: WLFH System, Detail image from: http://www.floodproofhousing.com/howitworks/viewthebasicstructuraldesign.html 337 fig. 318: WLFH System, Section image from: http://www.floodproofhousing.com/howitworks/viewthebasicstructuraldesign.html image from: http://www.floodproofhousing.com/howitworks/viewthebasicstructuraldesign.html 338 Endnotes

39. Winston International, “The Winston Land-Locked Floating House,” http://www.floodproofhousing.com/ home.html (accessed November 28, 2009).

40. ibid.

41. ibid.

42. ibid.

43. ibid.

44. ibid.

339 appendix v articles on the BFP

340 List of Articles on the June 8, 2007. Maria Guerrero, “New Buoyant Foundation System Buoyant Foundation Project in Hopes to Save Homes from Flooding” WAFB Reverse Chronological Order 9News, 346

Fall 2010. June 2, 2007. Elizabeth Fenuta, “New Orleans: No Easy Amy Wold, “Float This House: Professor Hopes Buoyancy” - Spacing Magazine, 333-334 To Save Ambiance of N.O. Homes” - The Advocate, Baton Rouge, 347-348 December 16, 2009. Brett Schweinberg, “Are Floating Homes an Option April 28, 2007. in Flood-Prone Regions?” - Tri-Parish Times, 335- Bruce Alpert, “Louisiana Professor Proposes Idea 336 For Making Houses Flood Proof” - The Seattle Times, 349-350 November 8, 2009. Nikki Buskey, “Could Floating Homes Be On The April 11, 2007. Way?” - Houma Today, 337-339 Bob Dart, “Plan would make homes in New Orleans Floatable” - The Dallas Morning News, 351 January 31, 2009. Matt Walcoff, “Floating an idea: Prof goes with the April 8, 2007. flow to protect homes from floods” - Rex Magazine. “Floating Houses May Be Big Easy’s Answer To Business In Waterloo Region and Guelph, 340 Floods” - COX News Washington Bureau, 352-353

February 1, 2008. April 7, 2007. University of Waterloo Faculty of Engineering Bruce Alpert, “Rising to the Occasion” - The New Annual Report, 341 Orleans Times-Picayune, 354-358

August 29, 2007. November 7, 2006. Richard Fausset, “New Orleans: Two Years Later: Ashley Berthelot, “Professor Proposes Buoyant An old city revels in its new spirit of innovation; By Foundation for New Orleans Homes” - accident and by necessity, the Big Easy is awash LSU News, 359 in ideas -- homes that float, revitalized schools and government reform -- as it struggles to rebuild” - November 1, 2006. Los Angeles Times, 342 “LSU Prof Researches Idea of ‘Amphibious Homes’” - New Orleans City Business Print, 360 August 29, 2007. Richard Fausset, “New Orleans: Two Years Later: October 18, 2006. Staying afloat; An engineer envisions homes atop Chris Gautreau, “N.O. ideal for Buoyant Houses” - blocks of Styrofoam” - Los Angeles Times, 343-344 Baton Rouge Advocate, 361

August 29, 2007. August 21, 2006. “Two Years After the Storm, the Devastated City Is a Dan Baum, “Letter from New Orleans, The Lost Boomtown of Fresh Ideas for Rebirth” - The Daily Year: Behind the Failure to Rebuild” - The New Green, 345 Yorker, 363-375

341 OUTER SPACE

NEW ORLEANS The BFP supports the local culture and is a catalyst in the restoration of a physical habitat. The shot- No easy buoyancy gun house has been an BY LIZ FENUTA • PHOTO BY LATOYA PRINCE integral part of shaping the distinctive culture in many parts of New Orleans, creat- Every night, we gather on my front stoop.We are multiple combinations ing tight-knit communities of jobless, homeless, family-less, and sometimes just plain listless. We sit and contributing to a sense of place. The BFP recognizes and some of us drink and some of us smoke and together we solve the the significance of allowing problems of the city — since no one in any official capacity seems able the house to remain at street level in order to or inclined to do so....We are a porch full of people who don’t know who’s restore this tight-knit com- playing in the World Series and don’t know what movies opened this munity culture. One of the first widely week and don’t know how many died in Iraq today. We are consumed. and the way of life it nourishes, Dr. Eliza- publicized examples of modern amphibious We would probably bore you to tears. But it is good therapy and we beth English, Associate Professor at the Uni- housing appeared in the Netherlands in versity of Waterloo’s School of Architecture, 2005 in Maasbommel. This engineered solu- laugh more than we cry, and that’s a start, that’s a good thing, that’s a founded the Buoyant Foundation Project tion that satisfies building codes in the sign of winning the war, of getting this damn elephant out of our city (BFP) in 2006. The BFP aims to provide an Netherlands has been working reliably and — out of our sight. alternative form of flood protection, more can be easily reproduced. Local examples of appropriate for New Orleans than perma- amphibious housing can be seen in Lake- — from 1 Dead in Attic: After Katrina, by Chris Rose nent static elevation high above the street. view and at the FLOAT House in the Lower The BFP is an amphibious foundation Ninth Ward, both in New Orleans. Each of > Five years after evacuation, still-displaced nity life in traditional New Orleans neigh- system designed for retrofit to existing tra- these recently constructed homes is fully residents of New Orleans have a strong borhoods. ditional wooden shotgun-style housing. It functional and, like the BFP,utilizes compo- desire to return to their former communi- The front porch is an architectural char- enables the house to sit just above ground, nents that provide buoyancy and vertical ties. Pre-Katrina New Orleans was a vibrant acteristic of the shotgun-style housing retaining the original elevation of a guidance. community of hard-working residents, and prevalent in southern Louisiana, which streetscape under normal (dry) conditions, Through the retrofit of existing struc- had a dynamic street life of neighbourhood relies on its relationship to street level to and during flood conditions, allows the tures with buoyant foundations, less parades that bound communities, creating thrive. This is the threshold of family life, house to float up on the water. A structural waste and energy are consumed when strong identities and a strong sense of place. social encounter and community engage- sub-frame is installed underneath the compared to new construction. It is also a Hurricane Katrina’s flood waters inun- ment; it provides refuge and sanctuary. But house. It connects buoyancy blocks to the more economical form of flood protection dated 80% of the city on August 29, 2005 as porches simply do not function as spaces of house and is attached near the corners of than permanent static elevation, as it is a result of multiple levee failures, particu- social interaction when they’re 12 or 15 feet the house to the tops of vertical guidance more cost effective to implement. As well, larly around Lake Pontchartrain. Flooding in above the road. Raising homes above street- posts that telescope out of the ground as the BFP provides a higher level of flood the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina led to level disrupts the harmonious relationships water levels rise. Thus, lifted by the buoyan- protection than permanent static eleva- new US Federal regulations and require- among residents, porch-dwellers, next-door cy blocks, the house can move only straight tion, as it is able to adapt to changing ments, including recommendations that neighbours, community passersby, and up and down, as required by the depth of flood levels. And the BFP is unique in that homes in low-lying areas of New Orleans be even foreign pedestrians — a community flooding. Utility lines can have either long, it offers protection not only from future rebuilt and raised high off the ground in of social engagement becomes a communi- coiled “umbilical” lines for water and elec- floods but from cultural annihilation as order to be safe from future flooding. ty of division and solitude. trical supply or self-sealing “breakaway” well — it protects not just the house, but Unfortunately, this is a flood mitigation Mindful of this fundamental relation- connections that disconnect gas and sewer also the street-level life and character of strategy that disrupts the style of commu- ship between the form of shotgun housing lines when the house begins to rise. the city’s neighbourhoods.

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Could floating homes be on the way?

By Nikki Buskey Staff Writer

Published: Sunday, November 8, 2009 at 6:01 a.m.

CHAUVIN — What are the options for bayou residents whose houses have flooded three times in the last decade? Do you elevate? Move? Pray?

Or do you build a house that can float?

Groups working in the New Orleans area believe that houses with floating foundations Emily Schwarze/Staff Ronald Buquet works on a wooden toy train could provide a cheaper, less lifestyle-altering underneath his elevated house Friday in approach to protecting south Louisiana Chauvin. Buquet uses part of the space communities from flooding. Homes could rest beneath his house as a workshop. on the ground until a flood threatens, eliminating climbs that are hard on elderly or disabled residents and preserving neighborhood character.

In bayou communities, where many have been forced to elevate their homes due to repeated flooding, that could be appealing.

Mark Callahan of Chauvin said he was reluctant to elevate his home at first. He eventually paid $45,000 to boost his house 11 feet. Had he been given the choice of keeping it on the ground with new technology, he might have taken it.

“I wasn’t so sure about going up at first,” he said. “But the levees aren’t stopping the water.”

But officials aren’t buying into the new technology just yet. Mike Hunnicutt, deputy section chief of FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Program, said FEMA doesn’t endorse floating houses as a good strategy for protecting against hurricane flooding. Also, the National Flood Insurance Program, locals’ only option for flood insurance, won’t insure floating houses because they’re not considered anchored to the ground.

He said FEMA officials began investigating floating-home technology when the first such house was built last month in New Orleans. Storm surge and waves can still push water into a floating home.

“And suppose you have a levee break,” Hunnicutt said. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that gush of water is still going to inundate your home before it can float.”

NOT A NEW IDEA

The idea of a floating house is a little revolutionary, but not unprecedented, said Elizabeth English, founder of the Buoyant Foundation Project, which is promoting the technology to protect homes in New Orleans’ 9th Ward.

“It’s an idea that’s catching on around the world,” she said.

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English teaches architecture and engineering at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Before that, she worked for the LSU Hurricane Center.

English was a consultant on the lone floating house in the 9th Ward, built by the Brad Pitt-sponsored Make it Right Foundation. The house is still uninhabited. There are also floating houses in the Netherlands, and some floating fishing camps along the Mississippi River, though the camps are not properly permitted by local authorities, English said.

The house works like a floating dock. A steel frame that holds the flotation foundation is attached to the underside of the house. Guidance poles are attached to the frame to allow the house to move up and down. When flooding occurs, the steel frame keeps the home stable while guidance poles keep the house from going anywhere except straight up and down on top of the water.

English said she believes it’s a good solution for communities where small levees might be overtopped, causing slow flooding that inundates ground-level homes. You’ll still have to evacuate — the technology isn’t meant to keep people safe inside, just keep their houses dry. The advantage is that your home can stay on the ground the rest of the time.

“The time for the application of amphibious houses has come. It’s a much, much better solution socially, and in terms of cost,” English said. “People prefer houses on the ground.”

LEGAL QUESTIONS

Permanently elevated homes are vulnerable to wind damage, English said, and elevations are expensive. Retrofitting an existing house with a floating foundation costs up to $25,000 compared with the $40,000 to $60,000 it can cost homeowners to elevate. Adding an elevator for elderly or disabled residents makes it even more expensive.

Pat Gordon, planning and zoning director for Terrebonne Parish government, said he has not been approached with any plans to build a floating house locally.

“It’s not something we’d promote,” he said.

It may not even be legal in some of the most flood-prone areas of Terrebonne. Hunnicutt said that a stop order was issued to prevent construction of a floating house in the Lakeview area of New Orleans because that community is considered a special flood-hazard zone, which means FEMA deems it especially vulnerable to storm surges. Much of Terrebonne and Lafourche lies in such special flood-hazard zones.

A floating home would not meet elevation standards, and you could not purchase flood insurance, Hunnicutt said.

“We promote elevation of homes, or in extreme cases, buyouts of repeatedly flooded properties, and moving north,” Gordon said.

There are grants that the parish can help you to apply for if your home has been repeatedly flooded. Parish grants can provide up to $30,000 for elevating. The parish has helped to elevate 150 homes since Hurricane Lili in 2002.

“Elevating those homes seemed to have had a ripple effect through the community,” Gordon said. “I see many more going up every day.”

SOCIAL SPACES

English said one of the biggest reasons she endorses floating homes is social —

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homeowners who elevate can lose the character and social atmosphere of neighborhoods as houses go up higher.

But true to the local community’s talent for adaptation, many bayou homeowners that have elevated have turned the area underneath their homes into recreational spaces, Gordon said.

“People put porch swings, deck chairs and barbecue pits down there,” Gordon said. “It’s very nice.”

Callahan said once he elevated his house, he enjoyed having the extra space underneath. Residents in Chauvin have turned the paved spaces beneath their homes into everything from sitting areas to garages for trucks, boats and four-wheelers.

Laverne Charpentier tended to the small garden she’s started beneath her Chauvin home Wednesday afternoon. Charpentier said she and her husband have lived in their house for 30 years and elevated 9 feet after Hurricane Ike.

Though she’s still not used to all the stair-climbing required to go into and out of her house, she said enjoys their new shaded area, with two porch swings and a picnic table for sitting.

“On a day like today, it’s very nice being down here. You get a little breeze and it’s almost like being on the beach,” Charpentier said.

Nikki Buskey can be reached at 857-2205 or [email protected].

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348 QUICK READS

The idea isn’t new. Residents of a rural hamlet on the Mississippi River have built buoyant homes for decades. Floating houses Floating an idea are also popular in the watery Netherlands. English first heard about buoyant homes at Prof goes with the flow to protect homes from floods a conference after Hurricane Katrina. In 2006, English, then at Louisiana State lizabeth English loves her job as an University, built a test home with some architecture professor at the mechanical design students. University of Waterloo, but her She now splits her time between UW’s heart remains in Louisiana. That’s where her School of Architecture in Cambridge and passion for preserving the culture and char- Louisiana, where she is trying to raise money acter of New Orleans has led her, to chal- to build a full-scale prototype. She hopes to lenge the conventional wisdom about how demonstrate to American authorities that to protect homes from flood damage. buoyant houses should be eligible for flood The U.S. government is pushing home- insurance. The government has been reluc- owners in flood-prone areas to elevate their tant to go along so far, English says. houses, sometimes by more than 10 feet. But “When I started at this, people told me I that’s expensive and separates people from Students from Louisiana State University built a house was nuts,” she says. “The idea of a floating their neighbourhood. English has a simple frame with a buoyant foundation to test the floating house is just too strange.” idea that she says will allow Louisianans to house design. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth English But nothing less than the unique culture of keep their homes at ground level: Instead of New Orleans is at stake, she says. “A whole fighting floods, go with the flow. Allow is connected to four metal posts to keep it way of life ... in New Orleans is being homes to float on the water. from floating away. “They work with the destroyed,” she says. “This is actually The professor designed a home that sits on water instead of going against the water,” something for people to come back to and top of big blocks of styrofoam. When the English says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a four- restart their lives as much as possible as water rises, so does the house. The building foot flood or a 14-foot flood.” they were before.” R Matt Walcoff

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12 REX JANUARY OUTLOOK 2009 350 351 ELEVATION; NEW ORLEANS : TWO YEARS LATER; Stayi... http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/1327038891.html?...

ELEVATION; NEW ORLEANS : TWO YEARS LATER; Staying afloat; An engineer envisions homes atop blocks of Styrofoam [HOME EDITION] Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles, Calif. Subjects: Flotation, Hurricanes, Disaster recovery, Housing Date: Aug 29, 2007 Start Page: A.16 Section: Main News; Part A; National Desk Text Word Count: 268

Document Text

Since katrina, many New Orleans residents have begun elevating their old houses on tall foundations to comply with new federal flood guidelines -- and to be clear of the water when the next big flood comes.

But that solution seems inadequate to Elizabeth English, an engineering professor at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center in Baton Rouge. She worries that those elevated houses will destroy the front-stoop culture that long defined the city's neighborhoods. She also worries that they might not be high enough to escape the next deluge.

So English developed an alternative: Propping a house on steel beams with big blocks of Styrofoam attached underneath. The beams are attached to steel collars that run up and down tall guideposts planted in the ground. When the water rises, the house floats up, but not away. (A more sophisticated version, she said, could use beams that telescope like a car antenna.) "It's an idea that works with the water, instead of fighting the water," English said.

Earlier this year, English's students built a successful prototype. Today, her nonprofit Buoyant Foundation is hoping to raise $150,000 to retrofit a house. Then she'll need to lobby for changes in the Federal Emergency Management Assn.'s National Flood Insurance Program, which denies coverage to houses that aren't affixed to a permanent site.

Though some have called her crazy, English noted that homes were built on similar principles in the Netherlands. She also said South Louisianans had for decades tricked out riverside fishing camps with Styrofoam

"This is a hugely innovative concept," English said. "On the other hand, it's really not new at all."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.

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1 of 1 11/29/10 4:12 PM Print Two Years After the Storm, the Devastated City Is a Boomtown of ... http://www.thedailygreen.com/print-this/green-homes/latest/6004

Two Years After the Storm, the Devastated City Is a Boomtown of Fresh Ideas for Rebirth

As these pictures make clear, much of New Orleans continues to lie abandoned and destroyed, even a full two years after Hurricane Katrina swept through the region with a vengeance. The Louisiana city still struggles with severe economic problems, dysfunctional government and the toxic residue left in place after the storm waters receded. But, as the Los Angeles Times makes clear, the Big Easy is also an incubator of exciting change.

Authorities are certainly in no position to guarantee the protection of New Orleans from a future Category 5 hurricane. Particularly with many scientists warning that the frequency and severity of great storms is likely to increase with global warming, the danger is very real. But designers and engineers are rushing to the challenge with ideas to mitigate potential damage.

One of the most original schemes is being put forth by a Harvard-educated, Louisiana State University professor named Elizabeth English, who suggests retrofitting houses with Styrofoam foundations. If high waters roll in, the houses can float. An amateur inventor has envisioned a special flood wall for his French Quarter apartment. A San Francisco architectural firm has proposed lining New Orleans' shores with giant "sponge combs" filled with baby diapers. They would expand when wet to block surging floodwaters.

None of these ideas have received widespread or government support to date, but they illustrate how the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast represents an historic opportunity to do things differently. Clearly, our built environment poses many challenges, from safety to susceptibility to natural disasters to the enormous environmental footprint. Our buildings use up more energy, and thus fossil fuels, than any other sector, including industry and transportation. That's why so many are looking at New Orleans as a chance to shine, instead of going back to business as usual and old bad habits.

Environmental groups have ridden into town, touting the opportunity to try out the latest in affordable green housing, which will provide substantial energy and resource savings, save residents money on bills, and make for cleaner, safer living spaces. For instance, a wave of builders are repurposing salvageable materials from the destruction, which is a win-win in terms of reducing costs and cleaning up the enormous mess. Brad Pitt is lending his star power to Global Green USA, which is working on an affordable green building project in New Orleans that will hopefully be able to generate all of its own energy. It will have solar roofs, recycled carpeting, cisterns to catch rainwater, and geothermal heat pumps. Funding support has been provided by the Home Depot Foundation.

Many innovators are hoping that good things can rise out of the devastation on the Gulf Coast.

Related Stories:

Hurricane Katrina: Two-Year Anniversary in Photos Hurricane Katrina Two-Year Anniversary in Photos, Pt. 2

Find this article at: http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/latest/6004

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1 of 1 12/14/08 4:50 PM WAFB Channel 9, Baton Rouge, LA |New Buoyant Foundation System ... http://www.wafb.com/global/story.asp?s=6601059&ClientType=Printable

New Buoyant Foundation System Hopes to Save Homes from Flooding Updated: June 8, 2007 07:16 PM

One of the biggest losses to the people along the Gulf Coast during Hurricane Katrina was their homes. Now, LSU has unveiled its prototype of an invention to protect homes from floodwaters. You could call them 'floaties' for your home.

Flooding is the most destructive and the deadliest aspect of a hurricane, creating an all too familiar scene like the ones during Hurricane Katrina. Now, wood-framed houses may be equipped with what homeowners can use to avoid those scenes again. A shot-gun style house has been equipped with a buoyant foundation, designed to protect a home from a flood by literally floating the house up above floodwaters. The founder of the Buoyant Foundation Project says it's not a question of if the levee will break again, but when. Elizabeth English says, "And when the levees overtop, if there is a category four or category five storm surge, the levees will not be designed to be able to keep from overtopping in those situations."

A team of engineering students and their professor built what they say can also protect homes in flood-prone areas. Big blocks of polystyrene make the house float, and to avoid the house from floating away, poles are installed in the ground with sleeves that move up and down. Project officials admit this floating foundation won't protect homes from all floodwaters. English says, "This can't deal with a house right on the coastline that is subject to storm surge coming right off the Gulf, but a couple miles inland where the water isn't moving so fast, it could help with that."

However, it's not cheap. It can cost you $20,000 to have the buoyant foundation installed or about $10,000 if you do it yourself. Still, English says it's a better alternative than elevating your home on pylons. She says, "If you elevate your house to eight feet, you could still have a 10-foot flood and your possessions would be destroyed."

Stuart Broussard, one of the LSU students who worked on the project, says, "I think the advantage is having a house that's still only about three feet off the ground instead of 10 to 12. I think you know climbing those stairs everyday is going to get old." Using a new system to help an age old problem. The project's founder wants to install this system on a house in New Orleans to show how it works.

Reporter: Maria Guerrero, WAFB 9NEWS

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LSU prof researches idea of 'amphibious homes'

BATON ROUGE – Elizabeth English, associate professor at the Louisiana State niversity Hurricane Center, wants to protect homes against flooding in New Orleans with "buoyant foundations."

English, working with a team of senior mechanical engineering students, is devising a way to retrofit houses with a flotation system to keep them above water in a flood. Similar devices are already in use along the banks of the Raccourci Old River in Louisiana and in the Netherlands and southeast Asia.

English’s unique “amphibious” foundation system is designed to retrofit

existing houses such as the “shotgun” style homes in New Orleans. The design will be engineered to satisfy new building codes and avoids many disadvantages tof more traditional methods of elevating a house.

“There are so many issues, both obvious and not so apparent, that come with permanently elevating homes,” said English. Among them are significant expense and increased risk of wind damage, and lack of convenience and accessibility, possible loss of neighborhood character and appearance of a structure raised on stilts.

A home equipped with a buoyant foundation will remain low to the ground unless a flood occurs, when the house would rise as high as necessary to stay dry. Special flexible utility lines accommodate the change in elevation. The house simply floats until the water recedes with a vertical guidance system keeping it in place.

Sans flooding, the house looks essentially the same as it did before being retrofitted with a buoyant foundation.

English’s team hopes to secure enough funding to develop and begin testing a prototype as early as December of this year. A $2,500 donation from Innovative Technologies Group from West Virginia helped fund the project, which still needs about $150,000 to complete.

For more information about buoyant foundations, visit www.buoyantfoundation.org/ or contact English at [email protected] or (504) 717-5098.

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Letter from New Orleans The Lost Year: Behind the failure to rebuild. by Dan Baum August 21, 2006

The downriver side of New Orleans has always evoked strong emotions. The French avoided it, settling the high ground of a Mississippi River oxbow that would become the heart of the city. The Americans, who took over in 1803, reviled it as a pestilential swamp. “A land hung in mourning,” the novelist George Washington Cable later wrote. “Darkened by gigantic cypresses, submerged; a land of reptiles, silence, shadow, decay.” Free blacks and European immigrants too poor to crowd into the upriver districts felled the cypresses to build clever, elongated houses that ventilated well, and assembled a rural neighborhood that was pencilled onto city maps as the Ninth Ward. Without much in the way of schools, hospitals, or transportation, the people of the Ninth Ward depended on each other, organizing mutual-aid and benevolent societies to care for the sick and the indigent. At the turn of the century, when New Orleans’s civic leaders began developing plans for a so-called Industrial Canal, connecting Lake Pontchartrain with the river, they routed it through the Ninth, cutting off the area that came to be known as the Lower Ninth Ward. Three bridges eventually joined the Lower Nine, as it is called, to the city, but the district remained isolated.

Only fourteen thousand people lived in the Lower Ninth Ward at the time of Katrina—fewer than three per cent of the city’s population—but the neighborhood instantly assumed an importance out of all proportion to its size. Depending on who was talking, the two sodden square miles represented either the indolence, poverty, and crime that Katrina had given the city a chance to expunge or the irreplaceable taproot of African-American New Orleans. The Lower Ninth Ward became, in the aftermath of Katrina, a vortex of overwrought emotion and intemperate r hetoric, a stand-in for conflicting visions of the city’s future.

New Orleans had a tradition of intermarriage going back to the French period, and the blacks living upriver of the canal tended to be light-skinned. The Lower Nine came to be known simultaneously as the dark-skinned side of town and as an area that was exceptionally integrated. Cane cutters from surrounding sugar plantations poured into the city after the First World War, in search of good dockside jobs, and the housing lots in the Lower Nine were cheap enough for them to buy yet big enough to keep gardens, chickens, even hogs. Schools, of course, were segregated, but Frank Minyard, who has been the Orleans Parish coroner for more than thirty years, grew up in the Lower Nine in a white family so loyal to the neighborhood that his mother forbade him to swim in the Audubon Park pool, in the city’s tony Audubon Park section. “My mother used to say, ‘They don’t like us poor whites uptown,’ ” he told me. “I didn’t get to swim in the pool until I was out of the Navy.”

The neighborhood’s racial weave began to unravel on November 14, 1960, after Brown v. Board of Education, when federal marshals escorted a six-year-old black child named Ruby Bridges through a jeering crowd and into the William Frantz Public School, on North Galvez Street. Leander Perez, the political boss of adjoining St. Bernard Parish, which was almost entirely white, urged white New Orleanians to resist. “Don’t wait until the burr-heads are forced into your schools,” he said. “Do something about it now!” Whites gradually fled New Orleans. By the time Hurricane Katrina struck, the city had lost about a quarter of its people, and more than sixty-five per cent of those who remained were black; in the Lower Nine, the figure was more than ninety-eight per cent. A quarter of New Orleanians were poor, double the national average; in the Lower Nine, most households were getting by on less than thirty thousand dollars a year (the national average is fifty-seven thousand), much of it from public assistance. For years, the city has been one of the most violent in America. Ruby Bridges’s brother was killed in 1990 at the housing project where he lived; last July, her oldest son, Craig, was shot dead on a New Orleans street while on a brief break from his job on a cruise ship. The Lower Nine was particularly dangerous. By the eve of Katrina, it had become, in the words of a local criminologist, “the murder capital of the murder capital.”

371 1 The Lower Ninth Ward does not lie particularly low. Large portions of New Orleans—including some wealthy areas near Lake Pontchartrain—sit four or more feet below sea level, while almost all the Lower Nine sits within a foot and a half of sea level, and parts of it are a couple of feet above. What doomed it during Katrina was its position near the junction of the Industrial Canal and another canal, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, or Mr. Go, which extends eastward from the city. The two waterways funnelled Katrina’s surge into a wedge that burst the Industrial Canal’s levee with a sound like cannon fire early on the morning of August 29th. The violence was tremendous. A huge wave scraped half a square mile of houses off their foundations and ground them to rubble. A red iron barge the size of an airplane hangar rode through the breach and landed on top of a school bus. Not a house in the Lower Nine was spared; most of those which didn’t collapse or slide off their foundations flooded to their rooflines. Their residents—among the least able to evacuate, for want of cars and money—drowned in the oily brown floodwaters or hacked holes through attic ceilings and sat on scalding tar-paper roofs for days, waiting to be rescued. The most famous, Fats Domino, was carried from the roof of his house—an incongruously grand white mansion in a particularly bleak part of the Lower Nine—by Coast Guard helicopter in the middle of the night.

Televised images of desperate people wading out of the Lower Nine shocked the American people—the obesity and missing teeth, the raggedness and strange English. Commentators of all persuasions were astonished and outraged that these citizens’ plight had been ignored by the government and the national media for decades. “A Third World country had suddenly appeared on the Gulf Coast,” a Times article said. Shepard Smith, on Fox News, declared that the country would be “forever scarred by Third World horrors unthinkable in this nation until now.”

Even as the city remained underwater, prominent politicians and businessmen began speaking of Katrina as a quick fix for generations of mistakes and neglect, a deus ex machina that would finally eliminate poverty in New Orleans. Some of the best-publicized early rhetoric seemed to confuse eliminating poverty with eliminating the poor. Twelve days after the storm, the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire column generated a furor when it reported that Richard Baker, a Republican congressman from Baton Rouge, had been overheard telling lobbyists, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.” (Baker claimed that he had been misquoted.) A former maker of shipboard electronics and a wealthy private investor named James Reiss told the Journal that, in rebuilding, he wanted to see the city transformed “demographically.” A number of people I encountered—often barricaded in their homes and heavily armed—explained the distinction between the “good blacks” they’d welcome back and other blacks, or passed along a bit of back-fence etymology, saying that the root of the word “Katrina” is “cleansing.”

From the earliest days of the crisis, the Lower Ninth Ward seemed to be in a special category. No other neighborhood, for example, was cordoned off by troops. When outside help arrived in force, six days after the storm, the National Guard roadblocked the bridges leading into the Lower Nine. Of all those people who were toughing it out in attics across the flooded city, only those of the Lower Nine were forbidden to return if they waded out for supplies. Though eighty per cent of New Orleans was inundated, the city’s homelandsecurity director, Terry Ebbert, appeared to single out the Lower Nine when he told a reporter that “nothing out there can be saved at all,” and Mayor Clarence Ray Nagin, Jr., said, inaccurately, “I don’t think it can ever be what it was, because it’s the lowest- lying area.” Ebbert and Nagin were exhausted, stunned by the vastness of the destruction, and lacking solid information. But nobody seriously proposed ditching Lakeview, an upscale white neighborhood that had borne the force of another breach, that of the Seventeenth Street Canal, and lay under even deeper water. Some bluntly welcomed an opportunity to abandon the Lower Ninth Ward. “I don’t want those people from the Lower Ninth Ward back,” Robby Robinson, the owner of French Quarter Candles, said. “I don’t think any businessperson does. They didn’t contribute anything to this city.”

Because of its history of black home-ownership, the Lower Ninth Ward is a neighborhood of deep roots. Many black New Orleanians either have lived there at some point or grew up visiting relatives there. Suggestions that it be forsaken sounded to many like a pretext for getting rid of the city’s black majority. Three days after the levees ruptured, I met a man named Michael Johnson on an uptown street that was covered with smashed oak boughs. He and a friend, David Bell, and Bell’s two small daughters had just escaped from the Lower Nine by lashing three refrigerators into a makeshift raft. “We put the babies in. David and I got in the water and pushed,” Johnson said. He is short and sturdy; in his muddy, tattered clothes, he looked like an escaped convict. (He is actually a dialysis technician.) He and I found some plastic buckets and took them to the banks of the Mississippi, a few blocks away, so the family could bathe. His voice cracked as he described their ordeal, which included a terrifying night on the hot tarmac of an Interstate 10 overpass with hundreds of restless and angry refugees. Johnson had food and drinking

372 2 water for only a couple of days, and no means of leaving the city, but his mind was already leaping to the bigger picture. “I’m not saying they planned this as a way to empty New Orleans of poor black people,” he said as he dipped buckets of khaki-colored water from the river. “But it’s sure going to work out that way.” Already, the city seemed to be cleaving along a black-white line.

When President Bush addressed the nation from Jackson Square on the evening of September 15th, the French Quarter was dark and silent. Crews from the White House had set up generators and lit the gleaming-white façade of St. Louis Cathedral as a backdrop. In his speech, which lasted twenty-six minutes, the President eloquently praised the victims’ “core of strength that survives all hurt, a faith in God no storm can take away, and a powerful American determination to clear the ruins.” Then he vowed, “We will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives.” He announced that more than sixty billion dollars would be spent on “the first stages of the relief effort.” He also pointed out that, “in the work of rebuilding, as many jobs as possible should go to the men and women who live in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.”

Mayor Nagin initially believed that Bush’s promise would amount to a hundred billion dollars, spread over ten years—enough not only to recover from Katrina but also to cure many of the old city’s pathologies. Nagin spent his early childhood in Treme (“Tre-may”), the heart of Creole New Orleans. His father worked three menial jobs, and his mother tended a lunch counter in a K mart. He was the sec-ond in his family to go to college—a historically black college, the Tuskegee Institute, in Alabama—but his rise to prominence, unlike that of most Southern black politicians, was through the corporate world rather than the pulpit. By the time he was forty-six, Nagin was earning four hundred thousand dollars a year managing Cox Communications’ cable-television operation in New Orleans. His mayoral campaign in 2002 was predicated on “running the city like a business,” and his victory is usually credited to white voters. His first three years in office were remarkably scandal-free for New Orleans, but his relationship with the black majority has always been strained; the preacher of the city’s biggest black congregation has called him a “white man in black skin.”

Bush’s pledge was contingent on the city’s having a recovery plan, so Nagin announced, on September 30th, that he was forming the Bring New Orleans Back Commission to develop one. As he explained to me later, what seemed most important at the time was maintaining good relations with the White House, and he appointed several people who, if necessary, could get President Bush on the phone. The co-chairs were Mel Lagarde, a white health-care executive, and Barbara Major, a black community activist and the director of St. Thomas Health Services, a clinic. In some circles, the group came to be known as the Canizaro Commission, because its most influential member was a real-estate developer named Joseph Canizaro, a friend of Bush’s and one of his biggest fund-raisers. Although Nagin was careful to appoint eight blacks, eight whites, and one Hispanic, Barbara Major, the only figure on the commission who is from what poor blacks call “the community,” told the Times, “Some people don’t understand that an equal number of black and white isn’t the same as equity.”

By early October, most of the people gutting houses and clearing fallen trees from New Orleans’s streets weren’t locals but Hispanics from elsewhere. Some fifteen thousand Hispanics had lived in New Orleans before Katrina, but they’d never had a high profile—no Spanish radio station, identifiable Hispanic neighborhood, or fashionable cuisine. (The restaurant Nacho Mama’s, in the Garden District, was owned by a man named Shane Finkelstein.) Eduardo Ramirez, a twenty-five-year-old construction worker from Mexico City who was standing in line one afternoon for a cup of stew at a Salvation Army wagon, told me that, before the storm, hanging Sheetrock paid twelve dollars an hour. “It pays twenty now,” he said. “And the cops don’t bother us anymore, asking for papers.” Ramirez and several friends commuted two hours each way from Baton Rouge. Other Mexicans he knew were sleeping in tents. On October 4th, representatives from a number of organizations, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the N.A.A.C.P., held a joint press conference to denounce the business owners who were hiring non-union workers from out of state, even when locals were available and ready to work. The electricians’ union said that one contractor had dismissed its union employees “in favor of workers from Texas.”

On October 6th, Mayor Nagin held a “Back to Business” meeting in the downtown Sheraton hotel, and in the opening words of a twenty-minute speech managed to alienate almost everybody. Several hundred rumpled, frightened, grief-stricken business owners had crowded into the Armstrong Ballroom to hear the Mayor and other officials talk about reviving New Orleans’s economy. Nagin, who walks with the stylish lope of a jazz singer, appeared confident as he took the microphone. “I know you want to know how do I make sure that New Orleans is not overrun by Mexican workers?” he said, without preamble, in his easygoing homeboy drawl. He was addressing

373 3 television cameras at the back of the room, and, by extension, his increasingly resentful black constituents scattered around the South. But the business owners, far from being concerned about Mexicans, were grateful for the pliant and low-cost workforce digging them out of the muck. Judging by the response on a twenty-four-hour call-in radio show that was the only broadcast airing in New Orleans, blacks, too, found Nagin’s baldly racial comments on their behalf insulting. The Mayor backpedalled for days.

Over breakfast one morning, the city’s best-known pollster, Silas Lee—a large bald man of fifty-one with an air of perpetual amusement—analyzed Nagin’s mistakes, starting with appointing the Canizaro Commission before reaching out to the people of New Orleans. The Mayor, Lee said, needed to “disperse teams right away, and organize discussion panels at places in the community.” He should have advertised a 1-800 number in the Houston Chronicle, for instance, encouraging evacuees to call in. Taking measures like these would send the message that ordinary New Orleanians—and not just a small group of élites—were included in the planning. “In a volatile time, you have one chance to get your message out,” Lee said. “You hit the bull’s-eye or that’s it.” Lee makes a lot of his money coaching experts on how to testify in court—how to convey complicated information to jurors, frequently of limited education, without patronizing them. Nagin’s commission would need that skill, he said. Painful decisions about what to keep and what to change would be based on such arcana as floodplains, actuarial tables, population density, and city budgets. The “jury”—the population of New Orleans, mostly black and poorly educated, affected by generations of poverty and discrimination, traumatized by the storm, and scattered all over the country—would be hard to win over. Discussions involving the Lower Nine would be especially sensitive. The area, Lee said, “represents African-Americans’ cultural and historical significance, and their financial stability. They’re not going to let anybody take that away.”

Nagin stumbled immediately when it came to the Lower Ninth Ward. He began allowing residents to “look and leave” on October 12th, so they could spend a few daylight hours plucking possessions from the wreckage. Some travelled great distances from their temporary shelters. To get into the neighborhood, they tried to cross one of the bridges over the Industrial Canal or to circle around to the east and enter through St. Bernard Parish, where the Lower Nine’s border was fortified by a wall of flood-wrecked cars stacked three high. National Guard troops protected all the approaches, and, for reasons that varied from soldier to soldier, they refused to let many people in. The residents were furious, and their frustration nourished a whole new crop of conspiracy theories: the city wanted to turn the Lower Nine into an industrial park; developers wanted the Lower Nine, with its riverfront and view of downtown, for condominiums; somebody’s cousin’s cousin saw Donald Trump drive through in a limousine. The rumors became so widespread that Nagin felt compelled, the following week, to issue a statement: “Read my lips: We will rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward.”

Seven weeks after the storm, Richard Baker—the Louisiana congressman who had reportedly celebrated God’s “cleanup” of public housing—introduced a bill to finance reconstruction throughout the state. In local mythology, the proposal quickly became known as an eighty-billion-dollar buyout, even though the bill stated that federal spending would be capped at less than half that amount. Under the bill, the government would buy, at sixty per cent of the pre-Katrina value, any flood-damaged house or small business in Louisiana that an owner wanted to sell. The government would consolidate the properties and sell them for planned development. Baker’s proposal was big enough to save New Orleans. It would put money and options in the hands of homeowners. And it was tailored to appeal to Bush’s sensibilities—government involvement would be temporary, and about half of the initial public outlay would be recovered when redeveloped properties were sold. The bill made New Orleans the greatest urban- revival opportunity in recent American history, and planners and architects from around the world gathered to help. More than just New Orleans was at stake. A third of the world’s population lives in coastal zones, many of them in delta cities that may flood as the climate changes and seas rise. The Netherlands’ complex of levees, fortified after a hurricane killed hundreds in 1953, is a respected flood-control model; done right, planners said, New Orleans could serve as another example of how to rebuild, smarter and better, a city flooded on an unprecedented scale. “That is the silver lining in this whole disaster,” a prominent local architect named Ray Manning told the Times-Picayune. “We have this incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reëngage and recalibrate this city in a way that, politically, you might never have been able to get to.” Joseph Canizaro called the city a “clean sheet.” In their enthusiasm to create a new city, though, the planners were up against New Orleanians’ uncommon fondness for the old one. A Gallup poll conducted a few weeks before Katrina found that more than half of the city’s residents, regardless of age, race, or wealth, were “extremely satisfied” with their personal lives—a higher percentage than in any of the twenty-one major American cities in the survey. I had glimpsed that stubborn affection in October, when the first secondline since Katrina wound its way through the debris-strewn streets of Treme. The

374 4 secondline is the quintessential trafficdisrupting New Orleans art form; in this case, the Black Men of Labor, a social aid and pleasure club, marched in matching yellow print shirts, with matching hat bands and parasols, while the Hot 8 Brass Band followed behind them, blasting music into the mostly vacant neighborhood. As the procession moved along St. Bernard and Dorgenois Streets, people materialized from the shadows. They ran laughing down the steps of houses blessedly elevated, or emerged gloved and masked, carrying buckets, from the gloom of moldy interiors. More than a hundred people fell in with the band, shimmying their shoulders and twitching their hips—tentatively at first, as though remembering how to celebrate, and then bursting into full-on, high-stepping, arm-waving street jive. Fred Johnson, a non-profit housing consultant who was shading himself with a yellow-and-green parasol, nodded appreciatively and remarked, “You can’t plan this in, you can’t plan this out. You can’t legislate this in, you can’t legislate this out.”

Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco created a commission of her own. The Louisiana Recovery Authority was established with twenty-three members, who were to advise her on rebuilding and later to oversee the distribution of the federal dollars that were expected to begin flowing any day. The only person named to both Nagin’s commission and Blanco’s was Donald (Boysie) Bollinger, who personified the impatience for a “new” New Orleans which was the driving ethic of both the city and the state commissions. Bollinger is broad-chested and jowly, with a big mane of gray hair, bushy expressive eyebrows, and the carriage of a viceroy. A Cajun from Lockport, about thirty miles west of New Orleans, he owns seven shipyards in and around the city, where, before the storm, he employed about a thousand people. He has been a friend of George W. Bush for a quarter century. Bollinger invited me one day to follow his silver Mercedes to a shipyard on the other side of the Mississippi. As we crossed over the sweeping white Crescent City Connection bridge, the creepy stillness of New Orleans receded, and it was striking to see the bustling activity at Bollinger’s Destrehan Avenue shipyard. Every berth was occupied by a storm-damaged ferry or barge. Great geysers of welding sparks rained down upon the docks, and the racket was intense. All that was holding things up, Bollinger said, was a shortage of manpower. “Ever since the storm, I’ve been trying to get my workforce back,” he shouted over the din. “My H.R. people went to every shelter in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, offering jobs at twelve to eighteen dollars an hour. I didn’t get one worker.” Bollinger held the view that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was pampering evacuees, by handing families two thousand dollars in emergency help. “I said to the President, ‘You’re empowering people not to come back to work.’ The President said, ‘I don’t think two thousand dollars will do that.’ I said, ‘Mr. President, these people haven’t had two thousand dollars in their lives.’ ” Rather than wait, Bollinger was hiring as many Mexicans as he could find. “I’m hoping the people of New Orleans come back and take a different attitude toward employment,” he said, pulling open the door to a small office building. “But until they do . . .”

We entered what had once been a reception area but was now a “kitchen”—a row of brand-new microwave ovens and some folding tables and chairs. Down a hall, small panelled offices had been converted to dormitories; four double bunk beds filled each one, their mattresses wrapped in plastic. Bollinger has devoted decades to improving New Orleans incrementally, as a chairman of the National World War II Museum and the president of the New Orleans Region of the Boy Scouts of America, and as a member of various committees to improve transportation, housing, and public schools—which he called “a failure.” Now he was a believer in Katrina-as-opportunity. “One storm, we have a whole new playing field,” he said as we examined a row of narrow fibreglass shower stalls. Bollinger believed that Nagin’s commission should deal with the city’s blighted neighborhoods by engineer-ing them off the map. “We do ourselves a disservice if we end with the concentrated poverty as it was,” he said. He supported a radical plan that the commissioners were discussing, which would sprinkle the poor throughout the middle class, in the hope that, among other things, they would absorb a work ethic. “If both my neighbors get up and go to work, I’m more likely to get up and go to work,” Bollinger said.

The chief promoter of mixed-income neighborhoods in New Orleans is Pres Kabacoff, whose company, HRI Associates, specializes in transforming disused industrial areas into trendy residential neighborhoods. Kabacoff, a handsome and soft-spoken man of sixty, has for years been pushing Operation Rebirth, a four-billion-dollar mega- plan that would, among other things, con-vert one of the city’s oldest housing projects, just outside the French Quarter, to a mixed-income development. Op-eration Rebirth would scramble the poor and the middle class in new housing throughout Treme and the lower Garden District, and pro-vide the city with a light-rail system. Kabacoff described the project, which would be funded by the Baker bill, as New Orleans’s best shot at greatness. His office, on the thirty-first floor of a building in the Central Business District, has a vast window overlooking the area in question, and, as we unrolled an artist’s rendering of the project, he swept a hand across the view. “New Orleans could be an Afro-Caribbean Paris,” he said.

375 5 The era of social engineering by wrecking ball began in 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Washington, D.C., to raze and redevelop a section of the run-down Southwest neighborhood. Whatever good such urban-renewal projects as this may have done, they traumatized residents of the minority neighborhoods they obliterated. This was especially true when the projects incorporated interstate highways. After I-94 displaced hundreds of people in St. Paul, Minnesota, during the nineteen-sixties, one observer wrote, “Very few blacks lived in Minnesota, but the road builders found them.” Black New Orleans had suffered its share of urban renewal, which carried echoes of the 1923 splitting of the Ninth Ward by the Industrial Canal. In the nineteen-sixties, city-council members chose to run Interstate 10 through the center of Treme. The city cut down the large oaks shading Claiborne Avenue—a graceful boulevard where blacks celebrated a parallel-universe Mardi Gras—and overhung it with a gigantic concrete roadway. Planners also razed eight square blocks of homes and businesses to build a cultural center and amusement park inspired by the Tivoli Gardens, in Copenhagen. The project never materialized, but urban renewal wiped out half of Treme. Likewise, though it wasn’t called urban renewal anymore, the city got a federal grant in the nineteennineties to raze the St. Thomas housing project, which occupied a prime spot near the Mississippi River, and replace it with mixed-income housing and resident-owned shops. Pres Kabacoff eventually got the contract, and the result, River Garden, is a collection of simple, attractive attached houses that stood up well to Katrina. Somewhere along the way, though, the number of subsidized units fell by more than two thirds; the idea of resident management disappeared; and the small resident-owned stores became a two-hundred-thousand-square-foot Wal- Mart.

Even before Katrina, public-housing residents were fighting a city plan to replace more projects with mixed-income developments. Some argue that the projects, as grim as they are, are the wellspring of New Orleans’s unique “bounce” style of hip-hop: the artists Juvenile, Master P, Turk, Baby Williams, and Soulja Slim all spent their childhoods in and around New Orleans public housing. In general, when New Orleanians describe what they love about the city, the first thing they mention is neither the food nor the music but the intimacy of the neighborhoods— knowing everybody on the block where you were born, and never leaving. “This is our neighborhood,” Paula Taylor, a public-housing resident, told the Gambit, a local newspaper, in April. She added, “Do I want to see it better? Yes. Safe? Yes. Clean and decent? Yes. But this is home.” It would be hard to imagine an idea less suited to New Orleans culture than breaking up the neighborhoods. When I asked Kabacoff about objections to his mixed- income plans, he waved them away. “You get it from both sides,” he said. “I’ve also gotten e-mails saying, ‘You’re contributing to the niggerization of New Orleans.’ ”

For residents of the Lower Nine, the most frightening proposal before the Bring New Orleans Back Commission was to “shrink the footprint” of New Orleans. The idea, in many ways, made sense: the city’s present size and scale were appropriate for the 1960 population of more than six hundred thousand. After the exodus following school integration, many buildings, and some whole blocks, were abandoned. Planners estimated that the post-Katrina population would reach only a quarter of a million—about half of what it was before the storm. Life among thousands of deserted buildings would be bleak, and a city shorn of much of its tax base would be hard-pressed to provide services to sparsely inhabited, far-flung settlements. In early January, the commission published a map of the proposed shrunken city. Huge areas indicated by round green blotches would be converted to parks and green space. All of the blotches covered areas instantaneously recognizable to New Orlea-nians as primarily black areas. Oliver Thomas, the lumbering, emotional president of the city council and a native of the Lower Nine, led the opposition to a geographically smaller city. “To say you’re not going to fix this community or that community— you’re not honoring the dead!” he told a crowded council chamber on the evening of Janu-ary 6th. The room erupted in applause. Before Katrina, sixty per cent of homes in the Lower Nine were owned by the people who lived in them—a higher percentage than in the city as a whole—and Thomas was eager to help his constituents protect the one thing of which they were sure: that property rights are sacred, and that they owned a city lot.

Those who wanted a smaller footprint waited all fall and winter for the federal government to relieve them of the burden of fighting for it. FEMA was set to release, for the first time since 1984, new guidelines for maps that would show what parts of the city the federal government would insure against floods. The maps were expected to rule out certain areas and thus cut through the racial politics. Proponents talked excitedly about the “discipline” they hoped the maps would impose—the city-planning equivalent of “Wait till your father gets home!”

Sean Reilly, a member of Governor Blanco’s statewide recovery authority, told me that New Orleans’s obsession with neighborhoods was dangerous in the context of the bigger hurricanes predicted by atmospheric scientists. “When you say ‘neighborhood,’ it’s become politically and racially charged,” he said, the day we met in the office

376 6 of his family’s national billboard-advertising company, in Baton Rouge. The White House had just approved $6.2 billion for housing, and Reilly wanted the state to withhold it from any place that was too low-lying. “We should talk about blocks and elevations, not neighborhoods, so we can talk about people rebuilding out of harm’s way.” Reilly, a red-haired man in his forties who likes to call himself “Mr. Tough Love,” showed me a poster-size satellite photograph of New Orleans at the height of the flood, color-coded according to water depth. He ran his hand over the darkest areas, which included a sliver of the Lower Nine. “We’re not going to allow rebuilding where it’s unsafe. We know what the FEMA maps are going to say. They will make some decisions. Certain places are obviously unsafe to build.”

Neither Nagin’s nor Blanco’s commission had any real authority, except to make recommendations. But, in a city desperate for direction and leadership, the media reported every notion that the commissions discussed. Ideas poured forth in a dizzying torrent: scramble the neighborhoods; ban building in the hardest-hit areas; make the city smaller; impose a three-year moratorium on building; no, three months; no, one month; no, forget the moratorium and let neighborhoods organize themselves, but, if too few return after a year, pull the plug on services. The debates were hard to follow, especially for citizens evacuated to Houston or Atlanta. The process paralyzed those trying to make decisions about damaged homes, and exacerbated their sense of exclusion. “It’s like someone coming to totally redecorate your home, and they don’t talk to you. You feel raped, violated,” the pollster Silas Lee said. “First, nature violated them, then the bureaucracy and planning process. If the commissions had understood that you’re not just physically rebuilding but emotionally rebuilding, they’d be achieving something now instead of deadlocked.” If ever a city needed a voice of brotherhood, it was New Orleans after Katrina. No one could find the right words, including the city’s powerful clergymen. When I visited the First Baptist Church on Canal Boulevard, which has about a thousand congregants, mostly white, its blue-eyed and flinty pastor, the Reverend David Crosby, told me, “There is nothing left in the Lower Ninth Ward but dirt! A woman who has a house down there, what’s she got? A piece of dirt worth two or three thousand dollars.” During a Sunday service at Watson Memorial Teaching Ministries, on St. Charles Avenue, the Reverend Tom Watson, a scholarly-looking African-American who subsequently challenged Nagin in this year’s race for mayor, alternately scolded his congregants for their mistrust (“You have to ask yourself, am I involved in something that would be divisive in my community?”) and stoked it (“I believe there is a systematic conspiracy to keep people out so they can make this city the way they want it”). The planning process so alienated the black majority that even ideas that showed promise were not acknowledged. Making the city smaller, for example, didn’t have to mean annihilating the Lower Nine. Janet Howard runs a nonprofit group called the Bureau of Government Research, which issues critiques of New Orleans’s waste and inefficiency. A former Wall Street lawyer with a vinegary, patrician disdain for pomposity, she often criticized the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, but she was a strong proponent of shrinking the footprint. In a borrowed downtown computer-company office that she’d been using since her own office flooded, she explained to me how the city could contract without destroying neighborhood integrity, through land swaps. She sketched it for me on a legal pad, showing how those in, say, the utterly destroyed parts of the Lower Nine who wanted to return could swap with people who owned lots in the less damaged part and didn’t want to return. The result: a smaller, but intact, Lower Nine neighborhood.

On Martin Luther King’s birthday, as Nagin’s reëlection campaign geared up, the Mayor reached out to his black constituents. “It’s time for us to rebuild a New Orleans, the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans,” he said. A bit later, he added, “This city will be a majority African-American city. It’s the way God wants it to be. You can’t have it no other way.” Quoting from an old George Clinton song was a ham-fisted attempt at reassurance from a mayor whose diction, if not his sense of audience, was usually more precise. Jack Cafferty scolded him on CNN, and conservative bloggers were in high dudgeon—“Where is the liberal outrage?” a Web site called Rhymes with Right demanded. Nor did Nagin’s pandering do him much good with black constituents. “Everybody’s jaw is dropping right now,” the council president, Oliver Thomas, told the Times-Picayune. “Even if you believe some of that crazy stuff, that is not the type of image we need to present to the nation.”

New Orleanians both at home and in exile seemed to take it for granted that once the President signed on to some version of the big buyout plan proposed by Representative Baker, the Bring New Orleans Back Commission would hand down solutions like beads from a Mardi Gras float. The expectation had induced a torpor. “People have been asking, ‘What’s going to happen to our property?,’ instead of asking, ‘What can we do to save our property?’ ” Greta Gladney, a fourth-generation Lower Nine resident, told me in New Orleans. “Instead of coming back and getting to work, they’ve been asking, ‘When will we get permission to come back?’ ” Gladney, who is forty-two, short, and caramel-colored, had her first child when she was fourteen, and went on to earn bachelor’s degrees in

377 7 chemistry and philosophy and a master’s in business administration from Baruch College, in New York. She’d long since started rebuilding her own two-story house, on Jourdan Street, tearing off sodden plaster to let the cypress lath dry. She was impatient for her neighbors to shake off their lethargy and set about rebuilding. “People will depend on the kindness of strangers,” she said, echoing Blanche Dubois. “That’s not good public policy, but that’s what there is in poor neighborhoods.”

On January 24th, New Orleans suffered what Congressman Baker called a “death blow.” Donald Powell, a former F.D.I.C. chief, who was overseeing Gulf Coast recovery for the White House, announced that President Bush would not support the Baker bill. The President didn’t want the government in the “real-estate business,” Powell said. Of the more than two hundred thousand Louisiana homes that Katrina had destroyed, the federal government would pay to rebuild only a tenth, he said: those which lacked flood insurance, were owner-occupied, and were outside established floodplains. Officials at all levels of state and local government appeared to be taken completely by surprise; on the streets of New Orleans, people were visibly stunned.

An official involved in the negotiations with the White House told me that responsibility for handling the bill within the Administration had shifted, from the coöperative Treasury Department to the office of Allan Hubbard, the President’s chief economic adviser. “Hubbard just looked at it as ‘We don’t want to set up another bureaucracy,’ ” the official said. “I’m a conservative ideologue myself, but I think it’s ideological.” Three weeks later, Bush announced that he would ask Congress for an additional $4.2 billion for housing in New Orleans, bringing the total to a little more than ten billion dollars—far from the ten billion dollars a year over ten years that Nagin initially had expected.

The Bring New Orleans Back Commission continued meeting into March, but its grandiose plans for social engineering now seemed pointless. The failure of Bush to “do what it takes” to rebuild New Orleans was only part of it. Much of what could have been done to improve New Orleanians’ lives, such as land swaps to preserve a smaller Lower Nine, wouldn’t have required a lot of money. It would, however, have required trust and coöperation. But, as the weather grew warm, the vision of a planned recovery slipped away, and an every-man-for-himself ethic replaced it. People began piling rotten wallboard on their front lawns and lining up on the eighth floor of City Hall for building permits.

Ronald W. Lewis’s family left the Cedar Grove sugar plantation, in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in the nineteen-forties, and ended up at 1911 Deslonde Street, a block from the eastern bank of the Industrial Canal. After Katrina, Lewis went to stay with relatives in Thibodaux, and I met him on a warm late-January day in the parking lot of an Applebee’s restaurant in Met-airie, a mostly white suburb west of New Orleans. His 1986 Cadillac was leaking coolant onto the pavement as he arrived, and the driver’s door was badly dented; he slid across the front seat to get out on the passenger side. “Isn’t this just the most beautiful day!” he said exuberantly. Lewis is broad-shouldered and very dark, with one gold incisor, a white pencil-line mustache, and tiny diamond studs in each earlobe. He’s fifty-four, but he seemed much older as he walked, hunched and stiff-legged, to my rental car. “Just wear and tear,” he said, from a third of a century swinging sledgehammers and wrenching pry bars as a streetcartrack repairman. Metairie, which was lightly damaged in the storm, was in a frenzy of rebuilding, like Reconstruction Atlanta in “Gone with the Wind.” The streets were jammed with high-riding contractors’ pickups and glaziers’ trucks that reflected the sun crazily in every direction. The farther into the city we drove, the thinner the traffic became. Along Napoleon Avenue, the grassy median—“neutral ground,” in New Orleans parlance—was covered with cars encrusted to their roofs with mud, parked there before the storm in the belief that five extra inches of elevation would keep them dry. By the time we reached Almonaster Boulevard, in the upper Ninth Ward, there was little sign of life. As we drove, Lewis told me about his childhood in the days when New Orleans was booming and his parents’ two-bedroom house on Deslonde Street was often filled with friends and relatives from the countryside. In those days, the rural blacks of the Lower Nine didn’t go in for what they considered the parading-in-the-street foolishness of the Creoles in Treme. “You worked and you went to church and you played music,” Lewis said. “You didn’t parade.” Lewis helped change that in the nineteen-eighties, when he formed the Lower Nine’s first social-aid and pleasure club, the Big Nine, which combined the mutual-aid functions of the old Ninth Ward neighborhood organizations with what he called “flash and dash: a two-hundred-dollar hat, nine-hundred-dollar shoes.” We crossed the Claiborne Avenue Bridge, glancing to our left at the spot where the Deslonde Street home had stood before it vanished. Under a crust of dried flood slime, storefronts testified to generations of hard times: cinder-block liquor marts, tire-repair shops with hand-lettered signs, a Popeye’s Chicken. The Lower Nine didn’t have a supermarket or a bank branch. For produce or credit, residents crossed into St. Bernard Parish, where they shopped

378 8 on Judge Perez Drive—originally named for the same Leander Perez who had called blacks “burr-heads.” Lewis’s effusive cheer waned as we ventured deeper into the neighborhood. By the time we passed Fats Domino’s vast white house, on Caffin Avenue, he’d grown quiet. But when we turned onto Tupelo Street, where in several yards small mountains of stained Sheetrock, lumber, and sodden mattresses rose, his face lit up. “That’s progress!” he said, clapping his big hands and laughing. “That means people are coming back!”

We stopped at No. 1317, a small tan bungalow that Lewis had bought in 1978, the year after he helped organize the city’s streetcar-track repairmen into the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. An orange “X” and “9/16” had been spray-painted on the door, meaning that rescuers hadn’t reached the house until more than two weeks after the flood. He stood on the dead grass, pointing to house after silent house: “Miss Catherine there, she’s in Atlanta. They found Christine’s body in that one two weeks ago. Her son walked in and there she was. Those people there are in McComb, Mississippi.” We peered through the back door of Lewis’s house; the interior had been stripped to the studs by a team of University of Montana students. “Isn’t that something?” Lewis said. “Came down here on their Christmas break just to help.” Until Katrina, a small, freestanding garage in Lewis’s back yard had contained the House of Dance and Feathers, a homemade museum dedicated to the Mardi Gras Indians and the social-aid and pleasure clubs of the Lower Nine. The museum, a ten-by-twelve room, had been officially recognized with tax- exempt status shortly before Katrina. All that remained was a muddy strip of Indian beadwork, drying on a kitchen stool. Lewis’s voice took on a dreamy quality as he spoke of neighborhood crayfish boils and fish fries, of bringing meals to Miss Catherine, and of the kinship ties among neighbors who looked out for each other’s children—life in the Lower Nine as painted by Norman Rockwell. When I suggested that perhaps grief was buffing his memories, Lewis insisted that the Lower Nine was never as bad as the crime and the poverty statistics suggested. “People weren’t as poor as all that. At least, it didn’t feel like that,” he said. “People got by. Everybody knew everybody. The criming wasn’t everywhere; it was, like, this corner was bad, or that parking lot.” He winked. “We’re able to hold more than one thought in our heads.”

As planning for a new New Orleans stalled, growing numbers of students and professors arrived to see what might be salvaged of the old one. One February morning, Jeffrey Chusid was taking a break and eating a praline at Loretta’s Too, a coffee shop in a run-down, arty part of the city near Elysian Fields Avenue. Chusid, a heavy-lidded man with a gray-and-white beard, teaches historic preservation at Cornell. Three graduate students sat at the table with him, studying an inventory they had made of public assets in the Ninth Ward—businesses, public buildings, parks. They were particularly excited about the Meat People, a gaudily painted market at Derbigny and Mazant, which had the look of an important neighborhood fixture. Chusid said, “The need is for everybody to be planning, so the people can say, ‘This building is important; we remember the people who lived here.’ Or ‘You know what we liked about this street? The curbs were the right height, and the kids would sit here.’ ” He finished his praline, and we piled into a white minivan to continue the inventory, moving slowly along Urquhart Street. A blue van coming the other way rolled down the windows and stopped, and the occupants, another group of students, exchanged intelligence about some oak trees on Poland Street; the students were making a list of every viable tree in New Orleans, and their best estimate was that forty thousand had been lost in the storm and flood.

While Chusid cruised the neighborhoods, Kenneth Reardon, the chairman of the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell, was helping to coördinate data on the condition of New Orleans which had been gathered by teams from seventeen universities. “It’s absolutely criminal—people looking out a downtown hotel window, making statements about neighborhoods they never visited much to begin with, saying nothing can be done and nobody wants to come back,” Reardon said, when I reached him by phone at Cornell later that month. He couldn’t imagine making plans for a city whose precise physical condition was unknown. “The first rule is: Survey before plan. The whole process should be driven by data, and people’s preferences, and the reality.”

Elizabeth English studies the effects of hurricanes on buildings, at the Hurricane Center of Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge. “You need to think about how architecture helps shape culture,” she said, when I met her at a back-yard dinner party in Baton Rouge. English, who is fifty-two and slight, has the intensity of someone whose career has met its most significant challenge. She is trying to save an architectural feature that is as emblematic of New Orleans as crayfish étouffée: the shotgun house. The shotgun—sometimes four to six times as long as it is wide—catches stray breezes and allows them to pass through every room. The house is too narrow to have a hall, so the rooms are lined up one behind the other. The original plantations in the Mississippi River oxbow that later cradled New Orleans were long, thin strips, starting at the river and running north, toward the lake. “People grow accustomed to the geometry in which they live,” English said.

379 9 When it came to laying out lots in New Orleans, they naturally laid them out long and narrow. That led to the long and narrow shotguns.” The shotguns, in turn, helped develop the close-knit neighborhoods that New Orleanians love. A shotgun’s salient feature is its lack of privacy. Getting from the front room to the kitchen, which is usually in the back, means walking through everybody else’s room or around the outside. On the narrow lots, shotguns sit close together, so neighbors are also on top of each other. “That communal culture everybody talks about in New Orleans, that warmth, all that life on the street, you could say that originates with the need for every plantation to have a little piece of riverfront,” English said. The shotguns are built of old-growth swamp cypress that resists mold, termites, and rot. “And they were built to flood.” The homes were designed to drain water and dry quickly. From English’s informal survey of the Lower Nine, it looked as though at least half of the houses on many blocks were shotguns. Most were in good structural shape, even those which had floated away. They needed new Sheetrock and wiring but little else, and it wouldn’t cost much, she said, to jack them up in anticipation of future floods. “You just put more cinder blocks under them.” A do-it-yourself owner could restore a shotgun for not much more than the amount—twenty-six thousand dollars—in reconstruction assistance that FEMA was promising to homeowners who lacked insurance. “There was this message coming out of the commission that you’d be foolish to invest in your flooded home,” English said. “But that’s just not true.”

When I visited Mayor Nagin in his office, in February, he was awkwardly straddling the issue of the Lower Ninth Ward. His Department of Safety and Permits was handing out as many as five hundred building permits a week, regardless of location in the city. Those who could cajole city inspectors into believing that their houses were less than fifty per cent damaged got a permit to accomplish repairs. Nearly ninety per cent of applicants were able to make that case. Even as his administration was authorizing the permits in the Lower Ninth Ward, Nagin said that he thought building there was a bad idea. “I wouldn’t put money in the Lower Nine,” he told me. “Nowhere.” Maps were the post-Katrina currency of communication, and Nagin, sitting beneath a vast abstract canvas, unfolded one of his own. He traced a finger along the path of the storm surge. The Lower Nine would remain vulnerable even if the Army Corps of Engineers closed Mr. Go, he said. “I’m comfortable with rebuilding everywhere but the Lower Nine. Yes, the Lower Nine carries that emotional charge. I have relatives who live in the Lower Nine. But I’d rather be honest and tell them exactly what the danger is.”

I asked Nagin if, given the black community’s hostility toward the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, he now thought that including James Reiss—who’d spoken of changing the city “demographically”—on the commission had been a mistake.

“I’ve known Jimmy Reiss for a long time,” Nagin said. “I’m not one to throw people off because they’re controversial. You need some edginess, especially in this town.” Black resentment, he said, was part of “the nature of New Orleans, the negativity and self-pity.” He folded his hands and bowed his head for a moment, sighing loudly. “Look,” he said. “What you see in the Lower Nine—the hurt, the resentment—has been there for years. Anytime you talk about revitalization, urban planning, you’re going to have people who say it’s a racial thing.” As Nagin walked me to the door and shook hands, I asked him how he saw his prospects for reëlection. A few dozen candidates had entered the race, and a couple of especially formidable ones were about to declare. Polling a city blown apart was nearly impossible, but, given the bungled rescue, the failed Baker bill, and the woebegone state of the city six months after the storm, things did not look good for Nagin.

“Twenty-four candidates—most of them white?” he said. “You’ve got to be kidding. Of course I’m going to win!” Mardi Gras fell on a sunny, cool, and dry day this year. Nagin, dressed in the desert-tan camouflage of a four-star Army general, rode a big horse at the head of the parade. Zulu, the oldest of the black Mardi Gras krewes still parading, had brought twenty-four Zulu warriors from South Africa, who danced down Jackson Street in the crisp morning sun. The Muses handed out their signature hand-strung glass beads from floats that depicted Nagin playing the “race card” in a Cajun variant of poker called bourré, and FEMA as a barrel of monkeys.

Governor Blanco, a Democrat, offered me a ride in her black S.U.V. from her downtown hotel to the main reviewing stand, a quarter of a mile away. She had lost the haggard look she’d worn during the crisis, when she was feuding with President Bush over control of the rescue, and was fresh and relaxed in a red silk jacket. “My surprise is how slow things are at every level,” she said. As of that morning, not a penny of either the original six billion dollars or Bush’s additional four billion had arrived in the state. (It didn’t begin arriving until May.) I asked her if she thought that Louisiana’s reputation for corruption was preventing Congress from acting. For months, the state

380 10 treasurer, John Neely Kennedy, had been pushing Blanco to remove any whiff of impropriety by banning state officials and their families from securing reconstruction contracts. Blanco told me that she didn’t like the idea. “The legislature is not a full-time job,” she said. “These people have to make a living, too.” I asked whether a Republican Congress and White House might be deliberately slowing the release of funds for a city that is essentially a big blue dot on an otherwise red state map. She closed her eyes. “I can’t let myself go there,” she said.

Interstate 10 casts a deep gray shadow over Claiborne Avenue, but that has never stopped black New Orleans from celebrating Mardi Gras along its noisy, smoggy, gritty length. Music thumped and blared from dozens of overamplified car radios and boom boxes, sirens wailed, and horns honked. In exchange for a twenty-dollar bill, a fat woman handed me a plastic plate holding a turkey neck, a crab, a sausage, and a pig’s foot, all fished out of a waist-high pot of spicy broth. A big man approached, dressed in a black shirt and pants with white skeleton bones painted on them. His face shone with a white skull that had been daubed on. His arms were thrown wide. “I’m a bones man!” he yelled, engulfing me in a hug. It was Ronald Lewis, the streetcar-track repairman whose Mardi Gras museum had been destroyed in the flood. Masking skull-and-bones, a traditional Mardi Gras reminder of mortality, seemed appropriate, as bodies were still being discovered in ruined houses. (One was found in a house in the center of the city on May 27th, nine months after the storm. The Louisiana death toll so far is fourteen hundred and sixty- four; about eighty per cent of the victims have been found in New Orleans.)

Lewis was deliriously happy that Mardi Gras day was a sparkling one, and that so many people were back for it. Now that the Baker bill was dead, the era of waiting for that illusionary eighty billion dollars was over, and the rebuilding could finally begin. “All that waiting around hurt us.” Sweat beaded on his face. “They dangle resources, and everybody waits to get them instead of just starting in.” Nobody else from his block had yet returned, but Lewis was going ahead with his remodelling. “I don’t care if I’m the only person on my block,” he said. “I’m going to live in my house.” Only in the bizarre world of the first post-Katrina Mardi Gras could the withholding of federal aid be considered good news and the prospect of living in an abandoned neighborhood victory.

In late February, about a hundred homeowners from the Lower Ninth Ward met in a church building, many of them wearing red T-shirts that said “I’m from Dat Nine and You Ain’t Takin’ Mine!” Along the walls, boxes of diapers, sanitary napkins, hand sanitizer, and plastic cutlery stood open for the taking. Ceiling fans barely stirred the stifling air. The crowd was angry; six months after Katrina, the Lower Nine was the only neighborhood without electricity. A man from the Small Business Administration offered loans, and a middle-aged FEMA employee stretched her smile to the breaking point as she explained the intricacies of something called “excess flood coverage.” Joe Ringo, a sturdy man in his fifties with a big fuzzy beard, stood in overalls and rubber boots, leveling a finger at the FEMA official’s face. “I don’t know why you’re down here talking to us about flood insurance,” he said. “This wasn’t a flood. A flood is an act of God. This was the government—the government!—doing a bad job of building levees and destroying our homes.” The crowd murmured; several people yelled, “That’s right!” Ringo swivelled and pointed at the S.B.A. official. “And don’t you be talking about no S.B.A. loans,” he said. “I don’t need no loan. The government’s the one needs that loan, because the government’s going to pay for my house!” People cheered for this vain hope; though levees built by the Army Corps of Engineers failed, the government has never accepted liability for all the damage that ensued.

The decision to rebuild was now in the hands of residents, who, for the time being, wanted only to put things back the way they were. A few weeks after Nagin told me that he was uncomfortable rebuilding in the neighborhood, he attended a similar homeowners’ meeting and announced, “We’re going to rebuild all sections of New Orleans, including the Lower Ninth Ward!”

The last hope for a planned recovery ended a little more than a month later, on April 12th, when FEMA released its long-awaited floodplain guidelines. Instead of ruling out redevelopment in low-lying areas, the agency had essentially left floodplain elevations unchanged. The only new rule was that some builders would have to raise new houses three feet off the ground. Sean Reilly, of the state planning authority—who had hoped that the FEMA guidelines would make rebuilding decisions a matter of safety rather than of racial politics—was incredulous. The three-feet requirement seemed both arbitrary and pointless in an area where water had run over rooftops. He told me that the agency had “simply abdicated” its responsibility. “They took away our moral authority to tell people what to do,” he said. “We staked our authority to move people to higher ground on the maps.” Instead, authority had devolved to homeowners. The latest plan from Blanco’s commission was to give homeowners the pre-Katrina value of their homes—up to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars—minus any insurance settlements or FEMA assistance

381 11 they’d already received. The pre-Katrina value of many New Orleans homes, particularly in the Lower Ninth Ward, was far less than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars—too little to buy a house elsewhere in the city. So, instead of encouraging people to move to higher ground, Blanco’s commission ended up doing the opposite: encouraging people, especially those in the lowest-lying and poorest neighborhoods, to stay put and fix up their houses. The state expects to start handing out checks this month. “There isn’t much to be done now,” Reilly said, morosely. The mayoral primary election, on April 22nd, whittled the vast field of candidates down to two, Nagin and the state’s mild-mannered lieutenant governor, Mitch Landrieu, but the contest gained little substance. Landrieu, whose family—his father, Moon, was the city’s last white mayor, and his sister, Mary, is a United States senator—has long been notable for its efforts to reach across the color line, banked on a clash of styles: a staid hard worker against a charismatic loose cannon. As Ron Forman, who came in third, put it when he endorsed Landrieu, “It’s not the plan now; it’s the man.” On Election Night, May 20th, the man, of course, turned out to be Nagin, by fifty-two percentage points to forty-eight. The blacker and more flooded a precinct was, the more likely its majority had voted for Nagin. But the results showed a lot of crossover, too. New Orleans is full of conservatives who would never vote for a Landrieu, and of blacks furious that Nagin left them sitting on their roofs, or sweltering in the Superdome. At his victory celebration at the Marriott, Nagin breezed up to the microphone and lavished thanks upon President Bush for what will, if it ever arrives, amount to between ten and twenty per cent of what the city originally believed would be coming. “You and I have been the most vilified politicians in this country,” he said to Bush, directing his comments over the heads of his cheering supporters and toward the TV cameras. “But I want to thank you for moving that promise you made in Jackson Square forward.”

The morning after the election, before a small group of reporters in the community room of a Treme church, Nagin did not address the question of whether some parts of the city might have to be abandoned. “People are starting to say, ‘Well, maybe there are parts of town that can’t come back,’ ” he said. But he wasn’t going to force it. Invoking eminent domain would be political suicide. Withholding services would be certain to prompt civil-rights lawsuits. “We’re not going to choke people out of city services,” Nagin said. “Everything that’s getting city services now will continue to get them.” He didn’t specify how the devastated city would extend schools, garbage pickup, buses, and other services to homes widely dispersed amid acres of wreckage. Three new committees, which included a couple of Republicans who had run against him, would take up those details. This was a day to celebrate, he said; President Bush had just called and was “pretty excited” about the election results. “I think the opportunity has presented itself for me to kind of go down in history as the mayor that guided the city of New Orleans through an incredible rebuild cycle, and really eliminated a lot of the pre-Katrina problems that we had with blight, with crime, with the public- school system.”

That evening, I drove east from the French Quarter, downriver, along St. Claude Avenue and into the Ninth Ward. St. Claude was busy, but when I turned north onto Alvar Street, into the area that flooded, I found myself in a ghost town. As I crossed the Claiborne Avenue Bridge into the Lower Nine. I could see, from the peak of the bridge, the freshly repaired breach in the Industrial Canal. The Army Corps of Engineers had mounded the levee there higher than before, and built along its top a white concrete floodwall that from above looked as thin as paper. Three recent studies of New Orleans’s flood-protection system make grim reading. A University of California at Berkeley study found that the Army Corps of Engineers—pressed by the contrary demands of “better, faster, and cheaper”—had over the years done such a bad job of building and managing New Orleans’s levees and floodwalls that, even with post-Katrina repairs, the city remained in as much peril as before. The corps itself, in a report of more than six thousand pages, acknowledged that it had built a hurricane-protection system “in name only,” and that it had done almost everything wrong, from assessing risk to choosing technologies. An article in the journal Nature found that the city and its levees are sinking into the Mississippi Delta mud much faster than anyone thought. In some places, the authors wrote, New Orleans is sinking by an inch a year, and some parts of the levee system are now three feet lower than their builders intended. In the following months, there was more bad news. Street violence grew so alarming—five teen-agers were shot dead in a single incident one night—that Mayor Nagin had to call in the National Guard to help patrol the streets. As much as two billion dollars in federal disaster relief was discovered to have been wasted or stolen, and last week a survey found that little more than a third of the pre-Katrina population had returned. The fate of the Lower Ninth Ward and the rest of the city remains anyone’s guess. New Orleanians tend to talk about the prospects of another devastating flood in the fatalistic way that people in the fifties talked about nuclear war. They know that they are living under the ever-present threat of annihilation. They want the people in power to do all they can to prevent it. But, in the meantime, there’s nothing to do but soldier on. A few days ago, Ronald Lewis left a cheerful message on my answering machine: “Dan, we have rededicated the House of Dance and Feathers!”

382 12

On my last night in New Orleans, I crisscrossed eastward, away from the breach. Most of the wrecked houses that had blocked the street had been removed; on only a few blocks did I have to back up to detour around a bungalow listing across the pavement. Debris crunched under my tires. Street lights were on, but no lights shone from windows. Doors stood open to dark interiors. On Lizardi Street, a half dozen young black men sat in the gloom on the front steps of a ruined house. They wore brilliant-white T-shirts as big as muumuus and heavy jewelry that sparkled in the dim light. Two doors down, on an unlit porch, a seventy-three-year-old homeowner named Ernest Penns sat slumped in an old kitchen chair. He wore glasses and had a full head of spiky gray hair, and the gold in his crooked brown teeth looked as if it had been applied with a garden trowel. He said that he didn’t need anything, and patted a heavy leather-bound Bible in his lap. “I got everything I need right here.” He led me inside. The single-story bungalow was lit by a battery-powered camping lantern. It smelled heavily of mildew and chlorine. “I washed the walls down with bleach,” he said, gesturing at the panelling.

I asked if he worried about the mold that was blooming inside the walls. “This is not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said. He pulled up his T-shirt to reveal a boiling purple scar. “In 1972, I was stabbed with a screwdriver. Drove myself to the hospital.” The incident had made him stop drinking and become a Christian, he said. Twelve years later, he had saved enough to buy this house, for thirty-six thousand dollars. Now, with many more years of payments on it, he was getting by on Social Security. He had water service but no electricity or gas, so he drove across the Industrial Canal a couple of times a day to get something to eat at a Wendy’s or a Subway.

We walked back onto the porch, and he kicked aside a can of TAT Roach & Ant Killer so that I could sit down. The street light on the corner flickered. A gold Lexus with complicated free-moving hubcaps, its subwoofers booming like a giant heart, screeched to a halt at the house two doors up. Penns and I listened to the young men laughing and shouting to each other. “They’re plying their trade,” he said. “They’re not what we need around here, but they’re part of this community, and it’s something we can’t control.” A police car rolled by once in a while, he said. I asked him how often. “About every five days.” I felt my way down the steps and said goodbye. Penns raised a hand and waved, barely visible in the gloom. ♦

383 13 appendix vi interview by charlotte garson with dr. elizabeth english

384 E. ENGLISH INTERVIEW IN BREAUX BRIDGE, AUGUST 2008 (TRANSCRIBED FROM CD)

I [Charlotte Garson, French public radio reporter] (French introduction)

E [Elizabeth English] I didn’t understand all of that, most of it.

I Yeah, so you originated this project that could potentially change/revolutionize the whole way the ‘habitat’ is being built?

E I think that this is the right solution for New Orleans in combination with some other revolutionary ways of planning. My project, I call it the Buoyant Foundation Project, it's for retrofitting existing wooden houses, the old wooden houses, pre-world war two, with amphibious foundations that work like a floating dock, except that they sit on the ground like a normal house most of the time and they only float when there’s a flood. But if these were used in combination with a cascading levee system, it would be revolutionary for NO and would be a very, very safe solution for the redevelopment of NO and make it much more comfortable in terms of safety and confidence of survival for the displaced residents that I hope will return to NO.

I How did you get the idea for this project, and maybe does it come from the Netherlands?

E The idea definitely comes from the Netherlands. I heard that they were doing amphibious housing in the Netherlands and two of my students and I were invited to the Netherlands in the summer of 2007. We spent a month there, which is where I learned about cascading levee systems, which are being developed by a German professor by the name of Erik Pasche in Hamburg.

I Can you explain what that is?

E What it is, it's saying that rather than having one big huge levee, which is only as strong as its weakest part, you have a series of levees. So, we could leave the existing levees in NO, not make them any bigger, just get them all to the point where they are really category 3 resistant. Then behind the levees have other smaller levees, for example

385 there could be a secondary levee, behind the primary levee along Lake Ponchartrain, that went around City Park in NO so that if it went to the south of City Park - if the new secondary levee was parallel to the primary levee but included an area that wouldn’t be disastrous, absolutely disastrous if it flooded, then you can let the primary levee overtop and the park would fill up with water but the land behind the secondary levee wouldn’t fill until that very large reservoir was full. And when that reservoir filled up, then that levee could overtop and there could be a tertiary levee system. It would be so easy to make cascading levees of this sort in NO because we already have the boulevards with what in NO is called the ‘neutral ground’, which is the strip of grass between the streets going in opposite directions on either side, a boulevard. But the neutral ground is always raised, it's always mounded and in fact there is a great tradition in NO of whenever there is a relatively small flood, people drive their cars up onto the neutral ground so that the cars are safe and don’t get flooded in the streets. Well, the neutral grounds, by putting a mound where the streets are as well as where the grass is, could be turned into a secondary or tertiary levee system. There are people who talk about using the old railroad tracks as part of a multiple layer levee system. So if you had a set of cascading levees, you could put houses that are appropriate for that environment in those places. So you wouldn’t have to put every house in NO onto buoyant foundations, you could put the houses between the primary and secondary levees on buoyant foundations. If that area flooded, those houses would float, so it wouldn’t be so bad.

I (French) So, the first question, I guess I reversed it, maybe I should ask it again… (French)

E I think I understood. The pre-world war 2 houses are built like wooden shoe boxes sitting on piers so that they’re off the ground. After ww2 they constructed what we call ‘slab on grade’ houses where they just level the land and pour the slab on the level land and build the house up from that. Well that’s fine where you don’t have any floods. You can put a house like that in a location like NO because the ground never freezes here. Obviously in other parts of the country you have to have real foundations that go down below the frost line so that you don’t have problems with the foundations in the winter, but that's not an issue here. Slab on grade works, as long as the levee works. But slab on

386 grade is a really bad type of housing for an area that floods, because it’s right smack on the ground. Traditional houses in Louisiana have always been built a few feet off the ground on piers, originally on stone piers, then brick, now masonry block, just something that lifts the house 2, or 3 or 4 feet off the ground. This house here is elevated on masonry piers. And so the concept is that with an existing house that’s already elevated off the ground, if you elevate it just maybe a few more inches, maybe not at all, to 3 ft, then you can put buoyancy blocks underneath the house that will allow the house to float. These are basically expanded polystyrene, EPS blocks, that you can put underneath the house and they just sit there. The house hardly looks any different at all from what it looked like originally but if a flood comes the house will float. There have to be what I call, ‘vertical guidance posts’, which are posts that keep the house from going anywhere except straight up and down. In order to attach the styrofoam blocks safely to the bottom of the house you have to put a metal frame underneath the house, but that can be made of lightweight pieces of steel angle, angle iron, and bolted to the house and bolted together so that it can, for someone who is handy, be a do-it-yourself project to put the steel frame and the buoyancy blocks underneath the house. And then, in four places near the corners of the house, the steel frame extends beyond the perimeter of the house and attaches to the vertical guidance posts. My first idea for trying to develop amphibious houses for NO or an ‘amphibious solution’ is to make the existing houses safer without having to raise them many feet off the ground. The original idea came from the Netherlands. But when I started working with students at LSU, I learned that right under our noses, almost in our own backyards, there are people who have been making amphibious foundations for their vacation homes in a place called Raccourci Old River, in Point Coupee Parish in Louisiana. Old River is a vestigial piece of the Mississippi River. It used to be part of the Mississippi River but now it’s a horseshoe shaped lake that attaches to the Mississippi at one end. So, when the Mississippi rises and falls with the spring floods, the water level at Old River goes up and down. Well, people were tired of having to mop out their little cabins every time they came back in the spring or in the summer to go fishing, and it was very expensive and inconvenient and ugly to put the houses 25 ft up in the air in order to keep them above the flood water. So, about 30 yrs ago a very enterprising fellow figured it out. He put a metal frame and EPS blocks under his house and he put four posts that

387 looked like telephone poles near the corners, and from the steel frame there were loops that went around the posts, and when the flooding came every year the buoyancy blocks would lift up his little house and the metal loops would slide up and down on the poles, and the house would go straight up and come straight back down. This little house is still there, it has been operating reliably for 30 years now, and many of the neighbors have followed suit so there are dozens of these there now, but very few people know about them. I had been working on this project for 6 or 8 months already and never heard of them and they were only 40 miles away from where I was working. But one of my students had built one of these with his family for their summer place and so he showed me photographs. That’s basically the prototype for our design, except that for aesthetic reasons and also for stability reasons and resisting the wind, which they’re not so concerned about at Old River, what we find works better is to have the poles telescope out of the ground, kind of like a car antenna. So the metal tabs that extend from underneath the house attach to the tops of the posts and when the EPS blocks lift the house, the tabs pull the posts up out of the sleeves, out of the ground, but the poles are very rigid and they don’t let the house go anywhere except straight up and straight down. Then people always ask about the utilities, well in Old River they did it a very simple way. They watched what the Mississippi River was doing and if the Mississippi River was going to flood then they went and disconnected the utilities so that the house could go up and down. But obviously we need to have a system where the house takes care of itself completely passively so that you can be on vacation in France and your house will take care of itself. So, we would put the water supply and the electricity on umbilical connections, which is basically a very long coiled cord, like an umbilical cord, and gas and sewer would be on self-sealing breakaway connections. The technology for these devices is already very, very well developed so we don’t have to invent those ourselves. They are already available and can be installed on these houses as well.

I (French)

E Entirely after Katrina. I started on this project in January or February of 2006 so it’s been about 2 and half years. The reason I got involved, the reason I got interested in doing this, is that I’m very, very concerned about the authentic culture in New Orleans.

388 NO is famous for its food and its music, but the food and music that you consume in the French quarter were not generated in the French quarter, they come from the neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward, or Mid City or New Orleans East. These are neighborhoods that are largely lower income; largely black and that have evolved a unique culture in those neighborhoods. Part of it, I believe, is related to the nature of the New Orleans shotgun house. Now the shotgun house developed for a number of reasons. The plots of land are long and skinny because what was critical in NO originally was access to the river, and then as streets were made, leading to the river, access to those streets. So, you would have a very narrow strip along the street or the river but your property would extend way, way back. So, when the city was laid out and property was developed, that was the pattern that it took. So the houses that were built on these narrows strips of land tended to be long and skinny. Also when you have a house where the rooms are ‘en filade’, one room is straight after the other with no corridors and just a door leading from one room into the next room, you get very good cross ventilation, so you can open the windows and get cross ventilation and in a climate like South Louisiana, that’s very, very important, prior to A/C. Everything changed after ww2 when they started putting in air-conditioning and modern building materials and thinking that humans could control nature, and that’s a big mistake.

I (French)

E I have more to say about the nature of the shotgun house. I think this is an important part of the story. The other reason that the houses were made long and skinny with just a very small façade on the street is because taxes were levied according to the square footage of the front façade of the house. So by having a very small area where their front door is, and the house extending way back, your taxes would be a lot less. That’s also why the camel back shotgun house developed in NO. A camel back shotgun is a house that is one story for the first two rooms of the house and then for the back two or three rooms of the house, it's two storeys. You get two storeys in the back but you're only taxed on the one storey façade in the front. So that’s a camel back shotgun. One of the fundamentally important aspects about NO and the shotgun houses and the culture that developed in these neighborhoods is that in a shotgun house there’s no privacy. Every

389 room is connected to one another, no corridors, you have to go through one room to get to the next. So you have to go through someone else’s bedroom to get to your bedroom perhaps, so there’s no secrets in a house like that and everybody knows everybody else’s business. Also in these neighborhoods with long skinny plots of land where it's hot and the windows are open for ventilation and your next door neighbors also have their windows open, and your window might be only 3-4 ft away from your next door neighbor’s window, it means that your neighbors know what’s going on too, so everybody knows everybody’s business. And what happens, what developed in these neighborhoods was a very, very, very strong sense of community. The neighbors on the block became like a little village, raised each other’s children, and went to each other’s house for food all the time. I hear about the kids growing up, and whosever house they were, wherever they were at dinnertime, that’s where they ate dinner, because it was all like one big family. When these neighborhoods were first settled, the people who built the houses usually gave the houses to their children and then if they had more than one child who wanted to live nearby, then they would buy a house that became available on the block. There would be whole families that lived very close to one another. So, there is a very, very strong sense of community that developed that I think is related to the form of the shotgun house, and that that's why the vernacular architecture and the culture that evolved there is unique. The products of that culture, the music, the food, the art, the way of living, are unlike any place else in the world, truly unlike any place else in the world. What happened with Katrina is that these people were displaced, sent all over the country, it’s a diaspora! Scattered all over, they no longer have the support system, they no longer have their community, and the culture is fragmented as well. So without community it’s very, very difficult to keep the traditions and the way of life continuing. For many of the families, because they lived in a house that was built by their grandparents or their great-grandparents, their whole family history is in this place as well. So, this is what were dealing with, we're thinking, how can NO recover and be authentic. Not be the Disney World version of NO, living in Katrina cottages. They need their homes; they need their real shotgun houses elevated on piers, made of cypress. Cypress is a particular native growth wood that is not available anymore. The wood is mold resistant, rot resistant, and termite resistant, it's perfect for Louisiana and the houses

390 were made so that they could get wet and the water would drain out. The walls were plaster, plaster doesn’t mold so they were basically drip-dry houses. But they didn’t flood that much because they were elevated above the ground. So this is what’s appropriate for Louisiana, and to me, personally, having lived in NO for four years and having experienced NO’s uniqueness and how it is completely different from any other city in the United States, it's really much more of a Mediterranean, or Caribbean or European or French-seeming city compared to the rest of Anglo-protestant North America. NO is catholic and Louisiana has French law, it's different than the rest of the United States, and you can feel that here, if you take the time to slow down enough to experience it. And it devastates me to think of all that being lost. So here I am, an architect, engineer, wind- engineer, hurricane-engineer, working at LSU, and Katrina and Rita happen. What can I do? If there’s anything I can do to take my skills to help the culture recover, then how can I do that? Well, because, trained as an architect, I see a very strong relation between the housing form and the culture there, that led me to think of what can I do to save the shotgun houses, if we could save the shotgun houses then people will come back to their houses. There is an incredibly strong homing instinct in Louisiana, they go other places in the world and realize there is no place like home, there is no place else in the world like Louisiana, and it’s not perfect, it has its problems, but it’s a really special place. They go make much of their adult lives in other places and come back if they can or come back sooner than that. I know many people who left Louisiana for a few years or even more than a few years and found a way to come back. So I think if people have their houses and they think that their houses are safe to live in, then they will come back. So how can we take these houses and save the existing old pre-ww2 shotgun houses that are made the way houses in Louisiana ought to be made, and make them safe, so that they are really safe? Because FEMA says elevate your house to the BFE, the base flood elevation or elevate it higher, but the BFE is only 3 ft in a lot of places. In a lot of places that flooded to 12 or 15 ft, the BFE is 3 ft. You know if you elevate your house to 3 ft, that will satisfy the law but if won't keep you safe. So you put your house up on stilts and now your house is 8 ft in the air, and you have to go up and down all those stairs, your grandmother is in a wheelchair, how are you going to get your grandmother up and down all those stairs, you go up and down those stairs all day, everyday, for years and years in

391 order to protect your house from a flood that may or may or not come, and then when it comes, the flood, let's say it's 14 ft, and your house is ruined anyway. So, that strategy, what I call permanent static elevation, is a fundamentally flawed strategy. It’s so inconvenient, it doesn’t accommodate disabled people and you live in an inconvenient way for a great amount of time in order to try to be safe from a short duration event that happens very infrequently. That doesn’t seem like a good solution to me. Not only that, but permanent static elevation destroys the neighborhoods because it elevates the houses off the street and there’s no longer that close relationship between the front porch and the street, where everybody in these neighborhoods sits on the front porch and talks to their neighbors as they go by on the street. Without that front porch, that sense of community in the house is lost. And then there’s the aesthetic aspect of it as well. I mean, some of the houses are up 3 ft, some of the houses are up 6 ft, some of the houses are up 10 ft, it’s like you know, the teeth in a jack-o-lantern, and who wants to see a neighborhood like that, much less live in one? So, what if we can come up with a solution that preserves the original character of the neighborhood, keeps the houses close to the street, so that the neighbors continue to have that relationship to the street that fosters community and for historic preservation reasons keeps it looking the same? And keeps it safer, because the solution I’m proposing is one that accommodates whatever level of water you find, you just have to make sure the poles are long enough. You can tailor the poles to your neighborhood, there are very good predictive methods for looking at what the maximum likely storm surge would be for a category 5 depending on your location, depending on where you're living. You can put in the length of poles that are necessary to accommodate that environment. So the buoyant foundation is a solution that preserves the neighborhood’s character, it is convenient, you don’t have to go up and down all those stairs, and it provides a much, much better level of safety because it goes up as much as you need, not just as much as you were able to afford at the time you elevated your house. The other thing is that it works with the water, it's not fighting the water. It takes things like global warming, and subsidence of the soil, the gradual lowering of the soil, sinking of the soil, it takes those environmental aspects in stride, because it just means that it has to elevate itself a little bit higher. We should know by now, if there’s going to be fight between human kind and the forces of nature, eventually the forces of

392 nature are going to win, particularly a force of nature as strong as moving water. So, work with the water; work with Mother Nature instead of trying to fight it or trying to beat it.

I (French)

E That’s pretty much the whole story, the other thing is that this is actually a lot cheaper than permanent static elevation, the only real disadvantage is that it hasn’t been done before and that FEMA doesn’t allow it. So, there’s a problem with regulations and national flood insurance and that sort of thing, having to do with FEMA not being willing to approve of anything that moves.

I (French)

E There are some parts of NO that had very little damage and are in good shape and recovering well and all of that. There are other parts of NO that suffered from the levee breaches after Hurricane Katrina, but the inhabitants of those neighborhoods have had the resources to bring back the neighborhoods relatively expediently. But then there are other neighborhoods in NO that suffered greatly, where the inhabitants of those neighborhoods don’t have the resources to be able to afford to live somewhere else while they’re fixing up their house. And the combination of policies of the city and the utilities and FEMA have been kind of a vicious cycle and worked against the possibility of people coming back. So that’s one of the neighborhoods that I’ve been looking at in the Lower 9th Ward. I’m specifically focused on the area between North Claiborne Avenue and St. Claude Avenue in the L9W because it’s a sort of in-between neighborhood, between the neighborhood north of North Claiborne where Brad Pitt's Make It Right is working, and south of St Claude, the Holy Cross neighborhood that the preservationists are looking after. It’s an in-between neighborhood where people think the houses were destroyed but most of them were not and are recoverable. I call it the "neglected neighborhood". So my work on the buoyant foundation is directed at starting there to help that particular neighborhood recover. If it expands beyond that, that would be fabulous. It’s a solution that could be used all over the world actually, any place that would have substantial flooding without a great deal of water flowing, so an area that is behind a levee is what

393 this is good for, or a body of water where the water rises gradually, without a wave of water, or water action that would push a house off of its foundations. That’s an incredibly powerful force and this system is not designed to resist that. I’m optimistic that NO will recover, but some parts of NO are having an easier time recovering than others. I’m very, very sad about the difficulty that the residents of this area of the L9W are having in coming back to their homes. If you have another minute I can explain this policy that has had such a negative effect on this neighborhood. What happened is that after Katrina, FEMA said, ok, you can apply for a trailer so you can live in it while you fix up your house. Ok, but we can only put a trailer where there are utility hookups. And Entergy, the energy company, said, there’s no people in the L9W, so we're not going to hook up the energy to the L9W. Well if there are no people there, then there’s no energy; if there’s no energy then there’s no trailers; if there’s no trailers then there are no people because these people had no other options, they couldn’t afford to be there except in a trailer. So it was months and months before Entergy even put the power back on in this neighborhood. It was a catch 22, people couldn’t come back no matter how much they wanted to, unless they tried to live illegally in the house while they were fixing it up and that had to be miserable. There were people who were doing that. It was such a long time before it was possible for the residents of this neighborhood between North Claiborne and St Claude, before they could even get trailers, that many of the people were so discouraged, and in the meantime their houses had deteriorated further because there was no air-conditioning and they couldn’t get in there to clean them out. They couldn’t even get in there to go clean them out. They weren’t even allowed to go see their houses for months, they were prohibited from entering that part of the city! I was able to get in because I was a researcher with the LSU Hurricane Center, so I could get a pass to go in. It’s appalling to me, that I could go in and see these houses, and the people who owned them, whose possessions were there, weren’t even allowed to go into the neighborhoods and retrieve their possessions, even see their houses, even know how much damage was there, know if their pets were alive!

I That really helps us understand.

394 E I’m actually working on a particular block. The city of NO does what it calls a tax sale. Which is that it takes houses where people haven’t been able to pay their taxes and offers them up for auction, where the price of these houses is the amount of back taxes that are owed. They didn’t really publicize this. I found out that there was going to be a tax sale last November. I found out the night before because a friend of mine in Opelousas saw a public notice in the Opelousas paper that there was going to be a tax sale on the internet, an internet tax sale, the next morning. She told me this around 8pm on Sunday night. What I saw happening, which is I think what’s happened to most of these properties, is developers pay the back taxes, then you have to wait for 3 years to allow the owners of these house the opportunity to pay you back, to redeem their house and regain title. In the mean time the person who paid the taxes is responsible for upkeep and all of this. Well, if you don’t really want the house to survive, if you would rather have the people go away and not come back, so that you get a plot of land that is someday going to be worth quite a lot for cheap, well then you just let the house fall down. So you pay the taxes and you let the house fall down and then the people have no place to come back to so they’re not going to redeem it. So then you get a nice cheap plot of land if you are willing to wait for 3 years. So I ended up staying up all night and getting google earth maps and locating shotgun houses, through the combination of the research that I had done in the area, because I had done quite a bit of fieldwork there, looking at the damage to the houses. So with the combination of fieldwork that I had done and looking at google maps, I picked out a few shotgun houses that looked like they might be in reasonable shape and decided that I was going to try to save them. Well I was going to do that for one house, then two houses, and I ended up doing it for 5 houses. Two of the owners have come back and already bought the houses back, which is great. The other 3 owners I haven’t been able to locate, but all three of the houses are on the same block. Now the city is trying to tear those houses down. I’ve blocked the demolition of one of them already, and I’m in the process of blocking the demolition of the two others. If these three houses were torn down that would have a huge impact on that block. But I’m able to keep those houses there. I went myself and cleaned out the yards. I found a youth group that went in and took out all the trash that had been there for almost 3 years, all the dead furniture and the overturned refrigerators and inches of

395 muck that had all been there for three years. One of the houses is a camel back, and the kids found two dog skeletons. If three years later they’re still discovering things --- but those were dogs who could get upstairs, they didn’t drown but their owners weren’t allowed to come back and nobody found them and they perished. So what I’m hoping is that we can find the owners, or relatives of the owners and they’ll come back and help revive this block. I would say about a third of the residents are back on the block but that leaves an awful lot of empty houses and a few houses have been torn down. One of these houses might be appropriate for the installation of a buoyant foundation, but I need to raise some money before I can do that. With the lack of cooperation from FEMA in terms of regulations and the fact that I don’t have any powerful backers, I’m waiting for someone to give me $150,000 so I can do the prototype of the buoyant foundation on this little house in the L9W and demonstrate to the world that it works. My students at LSU did a mock up of part of a shotgun house and we tested the buoyant foundation on the LSU campus in that way, but we need to put it on a real shotgun house to show everyone that it will work and that it’s the right solution.

I I hope you will update me on that. So when it airs we actually have progress.

E Ok, well let me know. Here I've told you the whole story.

396 appendix vii the BFP powerpoint presentation

397 What is amphibious architecture? Building Flood Resilience with Amphibious architecture refers to buildings that sit on dry land Amphibious Architecture like ordinary buildings, except when there is a flood, in which case they are capable of rising and floating on the surface until the floodwater recedes. This is a strategy that has already been

ChaRisMa: applied successfully in the Netherlands and in back-woods 1st Waterloo Conference on the Characteristics, Louisiana. Risk and Management of Natural Hazards My students and I are exploring amphibious housing as a 2 December 2010 Elizabeth C. English, PhD superior flood mitigation strategy for New Orleans (The Buoyant Associate Professor Foundation Project; the Rising House; TILT House) and University of Waterloo Bangladesh (The LIFT House). These are all deltaic regions where Ontario, Canada occasional flooding is anticipated to worsen with the rise in sea level that is expected to accompany global climate change.

There is increasing awareness that traditional flood-mitigation strategies that alter the environment and create concentrations of risk, such as levee- and dike-building, only increase the probability of catastrophic consequences to failure in the long run. Amphibious architecture is a strategy that can reduce the hazard vulnerability of flood-prone regions and increase their long-term disaster resilience.

Difficult access – especially for the elderly & disabled Expensive Insufficient protection in extreme flooding Greater risk of wind damage in a hurricane Creates gap-toothed effect in a neighborhood Homes lose close relationship to the street Loss of neighborhood character in an urban setting

New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina Elevated homes at Raccourci Old River, Pointe Coupee Parish, LA photos by D. D. Ewing

New amphibious homes in the Netherlands

The first development of amphibious housing in the Netherlands was in Maasbommel, along the Maas River, designed and built by Factor Architecten and Dura Vermeer. New Orleans: There must be a better way! Maasbommel, Netherlands photo by Hans van Beek

398 1 BUOYANT FOUNDATIONS Create homes that float in a flood In rural Louisiana -- Mission The mission of the BFP, founded in 2006, is to support the recovery of New Orleans' unique and endangered traditional cultures by providing a strategy for the safe and sustainable restoration of traditional housing. Flood-proofing the city's traditional elevated wooden shotgun houses by retrofitting them with buoyant (amphibious) foundations avoids the destruction of neighborhood character that results from permanent static elevation high off the ground. Buoyant Foundations provide increased safety and resilience in cases of extreme flooding and support the restoration of both the physical and the social structures of pre-Katrina New Orleans neighborhoods.

Amphibious homes at Raccourci Old River, Pointe Coupee Parish, LA photos by D. D. Ewing

When the Mississippi River rises in the For over 30 years, amphibious houses at spring, it floods Old River -- this happens Raccourci Old River have been rising and almost every year, sometimes more than falling reliably with the level of flooding of once. the Mississippi River.

Dry in September Floating in February Dry in September . . . the same house . . . Floating in February

Average cost of buoyancy system is around $5,000. Amphibious foundations are not new!

Dry in September . . . the same house . . . Floating in February Dry in September . . . the same house . . . Floating in February

399 2 BUOYANT FOUNDATIONS Create homes that float in a flood

Advantages

House normally remains close to the ground So why fight floodwater Elevates house to exactly what is required to stay above water, even if high above BFE when you can float on it? Less susceptible to hurricane wind damage Alleviates problems of soil subsidence and elevated sea level due to global warming Looks essentially the same as before Katrina Original traditional architecture is preserved Neighborhood retains original character

How a Buoyant Foundation How it works It basically works like a floating works dock. A structural frame that holds the flotation blocks is attached Section drawing of a shotgun house with a to the underside of the house. buoyant foundation There are four “vertical gui- installed, showing dance” posts not far from the buoyancy blocks corners of the house. The under the house and tops of the posts are attached vertical guidance to the structural frame. The posts posts that telescope telescope out of the ground, allowing out of the ground the house to move up and down. Utility lines have either self-sealing “breakaway” connections or long, coiled “umbilical” lines. When flooding occurs, the flotation blocks lift the house, with the structural frame transferring the forces between the house and the blocks. The vertical guidance posts keep the house from going anywhere except straight up and down on top of the water. Figure Created by Ben Morvant Figure Created by Stuart Broussard

How it works Construction Process: 1. Jack up house to BFE (3 feet) and build up existing masonry piers as required

A steel frame attaches to the underside of the house and holds the buoyancy blocks off the ground. The house remains sitting on its original masonry piers after the buoyant foundation has been installed.

400 3 Construction Process: Construction Process: 2. Put in vertical guidance posts and attach 3. Add T-beams and secondary angles to channels to inside surfaces of sill beams support buoyancy blocks

Construction Process: Construction Process:

4. Add foam buoyancy blocks 5. Add protective screen to keep waterborne debris from settling underneath the house

Construction Process: Detailed view The addition of a buoyant foundation has minimal visual impact

Figure Created by Stuart Broussard

401 4 The addition of a Comparison of 3 Conditions buoyant foundation has minimal visual impact

Even less if you add bushes! House on House House with traditional elevated a Buoyant masonry piers to 8 feet Foundation

Figure Created by Stuart Broussard Figure Created by Stuart Broussard

NOW ADD WATER . . . NOW ADD WATER . . .

Existing Shotgun House Shotgun House Elevated to 6 ft

Shotgun House on a Buoyant Foundation

Figure Created by Stuart Broussard

402 5 SPRING - SUMMER 2007

Five LSU Mechanical Engineering students built a platform with a buoyant foundation to test the design for flotation and stability: Scott Schroth Matt Guidry Dustin Husser Ben Morvant Dustin Ewing

Students from the LSU Hurricane Center added a house frame and built the flood tank to run the tests:

WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE? Stuart Broussard Ezra Boyd

Construction of prototype: Adding the platform Setting the piers

Setting the vertical guidance posts House frame almost complete (Note post design has since been changed to telescoping posts)

403 6 A layer of sand holds down the liner Now add water . . .

LIFT-OFF! Buoyant foundation at rest on the water

Water barrels and sandbags are added to Moving the sandbags to tilt the house simulate weight of house and its contents

404 7 Testing complete! Buoyant Foundations Save Shotgun Houses

Future Stuart Broussard & Scott Schroth Project for Considerations: UNESCO Urban Flood Mitigation Workshop Using Delft, Netherlands, July 2007 Sustainable Materials

The use of recapped, recycled empty water bottles in place of EPS (styrofoam) flotation blocks: Bundles of air-filled, sealed plastic bottles can provide both buoyancy and redundancy. WE HAVE WE CAN WE WILL OR EVEN……

Housing Housing Shops Shops Parking Parking Water Water

Only the 2 lowest levels will float, Parking garage provides buoyancy not the whole structure when flooding occurs

405 8 "Noah's Ark" House in Lakeview, New Orleans New Community Core Facility Spatz Construction This house in the Lakeview neighborhood of New Can house critical facilities in coastal communities Orleans was built by a contractor as a commercial spec Hurricane shelter for local community house. It was completed in the fall of 2007, but to date it Police and emergency services has not been occupied. The house was constructed with a legal building permit, but was denied a Certificate of Hospital / health clinic Occupancy . . . but that may soon change. Municipal offices Library and elementary school Community services Shops and offices on ground floor After a hurricane, if homes do not survive, core facility provides support for rebuilding community

"Noah's Ark" House in "FLOAT House" Lakeview, New Orleans Make It Right Foundation, Spatz Construction New Orleans

To the best of my knowledge, it is the first modern Actor Brad Pitt engineered amphibious house constructed in the United launched the States, and second in the world only to the amphibious Make It Right houses in Maasbommel. (MIR) Foundation in 2007, promising to give to former residents of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans 150 affordable, sustainable and storm-resistant new homes.

"FLOAT House" LIFT House, This prototype of a low-cost, Make It Right Foundation, Dhaka, sustainable amphibious house New Orleans Bangladesh for urban slum-dwellers broke ground in November 2009 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Initiated and designed by Prithula Prosun, We believe the currently a Master FLOAT House of Architecture by Morphosis student at the Architects to be University of the first fully- Waterloo School of engineered Architecture, each amphibious unit consists of two house in the to eight floatable United States to bamboo dwellings achieve clustered around a occupancy. shared courtyard.

406 9 The stationary brick base structure contains plumbing, utilities and rainwater storage cisterns. Each two-room amphibious bamboo dwelling unit is living and sleeping quarters for a single family.

DHAKA: November 2009 – Soils testing before the start of construction

Day 1 – Start of excavation, November 12, 2009

Starting the brick walls for the composting latrines and rainwater storage cisterns Concrete foundation for the service core

407 10 Bamboo for the amphibious housing units Day 10 – Brick foundation walls are started for water cisterns and composting latrine storage

Buoyancy blocks made of recapped empty plastic bottles Day 11 – Sample buoyant foundation is tested with live load

Building up the water storage cistern walls Prithula Prosun supervising construction

408 11 Day 32 – water cistern top slab and brick walls with concrete beams are Day 15 – Bamboo poles are submerged in chemical for treatment finished

Day 40 – Empty used water bottles are prepared for second buoyant Day 33 – Ferrocement frame prepared for one of the buoyant foundations foundation

Day 46 – Brick work is finished and bamboo frame for one dwelling is started Day 50 – Pre-fabricated bamboo columns for second dwelling are erected

409 12 Day 55 – Bamboo frames are erected for both dwellings

Day 66 – "You will notice in Photo25...the house on the right is higher than the left.. its floating!" (this has the recapped plastic bottle buoyancy blocks) Day 68 – Photo of bamboo entrance door and brick vertical garden

Day 69 – The lift house from across the pond

410 13 www.lifthouse.org www.buoyantfoundation.org

411 14 appendix viii paper for the urban flood management conference in paris

412 AMPHIBIOUS FOUNDATIONS AND THE BUOYANT FOUNDATION PROJECT: INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES FOR FLOOD-RESILIENT HOUSING

English1 E.

1 Associate Professor, University of Waterloo School of Architecture, Canada

Abstract

Amphibious foundations are a cost-effective, resident-friendly alternative to permanent static elevation for housing in areas where rising flood waters are not accompanied by high flow speeds. There is growing awareness that homeowners in established neighborhoods are resistant to permanent static elevation, a strategy that disrupts a neighborhood’s appearance and causes daily inconvenience, with no assurance of providing sufficient protection in an extreme flood event. Amphibious foundation systems retain a home's close proximity to the earth and relationship to the street by supporting the house at a slightly raised elevation under normal circumstances. When flooding occurs, the house floats to as high a level as is necessary to remain safely above water, then settles back into place as the water recedes. Successful amphibious foundation systems are functioning in Maasbommel, Netherlands, and at Raccourci Old River, Louisiana, where they provide flood protection that is both more reliable and more convenient than can be obtained from permanent static elevation. Two new amphibious houses have recently been completed in New Orleans, and a prototype amphibious house for slum dwellers has begun construction in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

In urban areas, amphibious foundations help encourage the preservation of established neighborhoods and existing architectural character. Homeowners in South Louisiana in general and New Orleans in particular are facing difficult decisions about how to comply with new flood protection regulations that privilege permanent static elevation at the expense of accessibility and neighborhood character. The absence of substantial improvements to the levees means that in most neighborhoods the risk of flooding above typical permanent static elevation levels remains significant. The Buoyant Foundation Project is developing an amphibious foundation system for retrofitting traditional New Orleans elevated wooden “shotgun” houses, so that displaced residents will feel safe in returning home to rebuild their communities. Amphibious foundations are a proven, low-cost, low-impact flood protection strategy that gives a community or a region enhanced flood resilience and improves its ability to recover from disaster.

413 Introduction

In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, many homeowners in southern Louisiana are required to comply with new government regulations in order to retain their eligibility for flood insurance. For most, this means elevating their houses to comply with the new Base Flood Elevation (BFE) requirements issued by FEMA (the US Federal Emergency Management Agency). Furthermore, in the absence of significantly improved levees, many New Orleanians who do not face official requirements to elevate their houses remain concerned about their safety and wish to improve their protection from flooding.

Permanently elevating houses, in some areas by as much as 12-15 feet, may be FEMA's solution to the problem of flooding but it creates new problems, such as difficult access to living areas, loss of neighborhood character and increased vulnerability of the structure to wind damage. With permanent static elevation, even if a house is raised to the BFE or higher, it can still flood in an extreme event. In the meantime, residents must live with daily inconvenience and a reduced quality of life in the hope of avoiding flooding in a future event that is statistically very rare indeed. A look at floating docks and houseboats suggests that there may be an alternative approach, one that would allow a house to remain close to the ground under normal conditions but rise as much as necessary, even if far above the BFE, when flooding occurs.

Figure 1: Permanent static elevation of homes in south Louisiana. This is the flood mitigation strategy currently promoted by US government agencies.

Background

In February 2006, six months after Hurricane Katrina, I found myself questioning how I, in my position of Associate Professor - Research at the Louisiana State University (LSU) Hurricane Center, could help New Orleanians scattered across the country feel that it was safe to return home, to reverse the diaspora that had siphoned away the people who were New Orleans' heart and soul, the city's authentic cultural source and creative force. For me this meant, could I direct my work in a way that might serve to mitigate the dissolution of New Orleans' core culture? It became for 414 me a mission to devise a way to make the shotgun houses in the old New Orleans neighborhoods truly protected from flooding, so that the people who used to live in them would feel that it was safe to return and that restoring them was not an exercise in futility; so that the old neighborhoods could be reestablished, so that New Orleans’ unique culture, currently displaced, fragmented and endangered, would not become extinct. Endangered plants and animals are protected by the federal government, but who protects endangered human cultures? What could an academic researcher in a technical field do to counteract a set of social and political forces that had compounded into what appeared to be nothing short of a cultural genocide?

Might not restoration of the physical habitat encourage restoration of the culture? Demolition and rebuilding would not reestablish the pre-Katrina neighborhoods, community culture, and culture of community that had flourished there; we would do better if we could "save the shotgun". In fact, the shotgun houses themselves are critical players in this project, because the uniqueness of New Orleans culture is, I believe, in no small part due to shotgun house typology. The strong sense of community at the heart of New Orleans cultural life is a direct response to an absence of privacy in a shotgun house that serves to foster social interaction, both within the house and among the houses in a neighborhood of shotguns.

Shotgun houses need a flood-proofing strategy that does not compromise the relationship of the house to the street or to the other houses in the neighborhood. What they do not need is permanent static elevation, which is occupant-unfriendly, neighborhood-disruptive and unable to provide sufficient protection in an extreme flood, but which is the only elevation strategy approved by the US National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and thus the only one FEMA has allowed. A buoyant foundation is a relatively inexpensive, unobtrusive retrofit to a shotgun house that provides it with buoyancy blocks and a vertical guidance system interconnected by a light structural frame, so that the house rises to float on the water when flooding occurs and settles back into its original place when the water recedes. Unlike such risk-concentrating, traditional flood mitigation strategies as levees and floodgates, buoyant foundations diffuse risk and increase a community's resilience. In action, buoyant foundations work with flood water rather than trying to fight it.

Amphibious Housing in Louisiana

Figure 2: Amphibious houses in rural Louisiana, dry in September, floating in February.

415 There is a growing number of cost-effective amphibious houses around the world. Best known are the amphibious houses designed and built earlier this decade by Factor Architecten and DuraVermeer at Maasbommel in the Netherlands. In rural areas of south Louisiana, there have been clusters of amphibious housing functioning reliably for over thirty years. Raccourci Old River in Point Coupee Parish is one such location. The lake that is called Old River was once a part of the Mississippi River, and remains connected to the Mississippi at one end; thus the water level in Old River rises and falls with the Mississippi's spring floods. Unhampered by building codes in these rural areas, local residents and vacationing fishermen devised an amphibious foundation system that has been keeping their homes and fishing camps dry for over three decades. Large blocks of EPS (expanded polystyrene, or styrofoam) are secured underneath the home which has been raised to an elevation 3 - 4 ft above the ground. Long poles or pipes are sunk into the ground near the corners of the house. When flooding occurs, the EPS blocks raise the house. Sleeves that have been placed around the poles and attached to the structural frame of the home are able to slide up and down, allowing the home to rise and fall with the level of flooding.

Figure 3: An amphibious house in rural Louisiana, the same house in September and in February.

Make It Right FLOAT House in New Orleans

Figure 4: The FLOAT House, New Orleans. Elevation, interior guide post and sleeve detail.

416 Actor Brad Pitt launched the Make It Right (MIR) Foundation in 2007, promising to give to former residents of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans 150 affordable, sustainable and storm-resistant new homes. Morphosis Architects designed the amphibious FLOAT House for MIR. It was completed just a few weeks ago in October 2009. The base of the house is a "chassis" formed of EPS encased in fiberglass-reinforced concrete. It acts as a raft, allowing the house to rise vertically by sliding on two guide posts that pass through sleeves in the chassis, one at each end, inside the house. The house can float up to twelve feet as water levels rise.

Lakeview Amphibious House in New Orleans

Figure 5: Lakeview House, New Orleans. Elevation and detail of connection to post.

This house in the Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans was built by a contractor as a commercial spec house. It was completed more than a year ago, but to date it has not been occupied. Due to difficulties with the permitting process, the contractor has been unable to obtain a Certificate of Occupancy. The house appears to be supported on a hollow steel box that provides its buoyancy. The box rests on a concrete slab-on- grade. Four wood vertical guidance posts are set near the corners of the house. Each post is attached to the house by two steel sleeves welded to the steel box. The sleeves are capable of sliding up and down on the posts.

LIFT House in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Figure 6: The LIFT House in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Eight-unit and two-unit clusters.

417 This prototype of a low-cost, sustainable amphibious house for urban slum-dwellers broke ground in November of this year in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Initiated and designed by Prithula Prosun, currently a Master of Architecture student at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture, each independent structure consists of two to eight floatable bamboo dwellings clustered around a shared courtyard. A stationary brick base supporting the dwellings contains plumbing, utilities and rainwater storage cisterns. Each two-room amphibious bamboo dwelling unit provides living and sleeping quarters for a single family.

Figure 7: The LIFT House in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Concrete and brick base structure under construction; buoyancy block made of recapped, recycled plastic bottles.

The Buoyant Foundation Project

The Buoyant Foundation Project (BFP) is a non-profit research initiative founded in 2006 at the LSU Hurricane Center with the goal of designing and implementing retrofittable buoyant foundations for New Orleans "shotgun" houses.

What is a Buoyant Foundation?

A buoyant foundation is a type of amphibious foundation that is specially designed to be retrofitted to an existing south Louisiana shotgun house. It allows the house to sit just above the ground like a normal elevated house under normal conditions, but to rise up and float safely on the water when there is a flood. It has a structural subframe that attaches to the underside of the house and supports the flotation elements, or buoyancy blocks. Extensions of the structural subframe attach to the tops of vertical guidance poles near the corners of the house that telescope out of the ground to provide resistance to lateral forces from wind and flowing water. When flooding occurs, the flotation blocks lift the house, with the structural subframe transferring the forces between the house, blocks and poles. The vertical guidance poles keep the house from going anywhere except straight up and down on top of the water.

The elements of the structural subframe are inserted underneath the house in pieces. Most of the pieces are small and light enough to be installed by two persons without machinery. After the buoyant foundation is in place, the house remains supported on 418 its original piers except when flooding occurs. Utility lines have either long, coiled “umbilical” lines or self-sealing “breakaway” connections that disconnect gas and sewer lines when the house begins to rise.

Figure 8: Schematic diagrams of the buoyant foundation system.

In 2007 our team of LSU Hurricane Center faculty and students successfully constructed and tested a full-scale prototype buoyant foundation system installed on a platform structure representing the full width (13 ft) and 40% (24 ft) of the full length (approx. 60 ft) of a typical shotgun house.

Figure 9: Full-scale testing of prototype buoyant foundation system. Constuction of prototype; stability test showing floating platform tilted due to unevenly distributed sandbags representing imbalanced live load.

Preservation and Sustainability Considerations

Buoyant foundations preserve traditional shotgun houses. They are considerably less expensive ($20-25k US) than permanent static elevation ($40-60k US). They alleviate any long-term deterioration of protection resulting from soil subsidence and elevated sea level from global warming, something that permanent static elevation cannot avoid. The house is not permanently elevated and it is therefore less vulnerable to hurricane wind damage.

419 A house when retrofitted with a buoyant foundation looks essentially the same as it did before, unlike a house with permanent static elevation. The original traditional architecture and the relationship of the house to the street are preserved. New Orleans neighborhoods retain their original, unique character.

The use of buoyant foundations is an approach to flood mitigation that disperses risk rather than concentrating it. They are a low impact solution that improves community resilience. They promote restoration rather than demolition, which is a much more sustainable response to local housing needs. They preserve a form of traditional vernacular housing that is particularly appropiate for the local climate and made of a particularly appropriate local material (native cypress is termite-, mold- and rot- resistant) that is no longer available and thus irreplaceable.

Future directions

We are currently exploring the use of Thermoplastic Timber, a new structural material made of recycled plastic bottles, reinforced with fiberglass from recycled automobile bumpers, to replace the steel in the structural subframe and telescoping vertical guidance poles. We are also exploring the use of containers filled with recapped recycled plastic waterbottles to replace the styrofoam in the buoyancy blocks. Our goal, with proper funding, is to install buoyant foundations on 300 shotgun houses in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward in the next eight to ten years.

Conclusions

Amphibious foundations are a proven, low-cost, low-impact flood protection strategy that can increase a flood-prone community's resilience in the face of disaster.

Why fight floodwater when you can float on it?

Figure 10: Rendering of a shotgun house retrofitted with buoyant foundation system.

420 appendix ix richard campanella at the building resilience workshop

421 Richard Campanella, Flood Resilience Conference, February 25-27, 2010

I realize this is the regional panel; however, I’m gonna start on an empirical, urban scale, and then cast a water net toward the end and pass it on to my colleagues. What I’d like to do is trace the movement of the population here in New Orleans with respect to topography. You’re all familiar with the underlying topography of the delta plain, the natural levy and ridge system, and the establishment of the original city, which we’re on the brink of here. At the cusp of that natural levy, if you look at the population centroid, and that is the center of balance, around which the human population is evenly distributed, roughly around the same Peter Royal intersection is where the colonial era population was. Now, with American emigration as well as foreign immigration and the growth of the city, in the mid 1800s, that centroid moved to the present day central business district. Throughout this era, in as late as the 1890s, almost the entire deltaic plain remained at or above sea level. We were not anywhere near below sea level. Now, this is developed from contours that were mapped as part of the Drainage Advisory Board’s initial research in 1893. These are roughly the corollaries of people in this room a hundred and fifteen years ago. Top notch engineers and surveyors and planners are preparing for the municipal drainage system, that would be built from this data. And as you can see—I’ve interpolated it here—but with the small exception of that [inaudible] ward area on the right there, the entire city remains above sea level. Right after this, (about) 20 years, with the installation of the municipal drainage system, the removal of the water component from the sand, silt and clay, the drying out of organic matters, those minute particles settle into those cavities, we start of see the drying out and the subsidence of those areas as the populations starts to move toward the lake. This is 1910. Census stayed at the enumeration level, and you can see the centroid is now for the first time moving away from the river toward the lake. 1930s, this is 1939, WPA data, moving even more toward the lake, as you see, lake view. And Gentilly developing. 1960s, still in that northward direction, even as these areas (are) subsiding. By 2000 and the development of New Orleans East, we now see this eastward movement over here. By this time we start to have modern-day LIDAR measurements as well as GPS, and when we overlay the topography now, after 100 years of subsidence, all those red areas have dropped in some cases 2-3 meters below sea level. So when you neutralize for the changing vertical datums and mapping technologies and basically subtract that 1895 map from the LIDAR map, (it) comes as no surprise that the lion’s share of that subsidence has happened in those five particle areas. Now, what about pre- and post-Katrina? We have to shift gears here, we don’t have census data yet. If you look at households receiving mail, and their centroid, this is the pre-Katrina one, and for the first time now, in New Orleans’ history, it’s shifting back towards the river. So, here is the progression up until Katrina and for the first time we’re seeing that curlicue. I’m going to skip over this in the interest of time and conclude by revisiting some of Elizabeth’s guiding questions here. What innovations have occurred in response to catastrophic events? We can reverse that, and wonder what catastrophic events came off what we thought were innovations. Innovative solutions have too often spawned future hazards. What about the physical and cultural implications of redesigning cities? As Larry Buss alluded to earlier, unless you can swiftly and fairly compensate those inconvenienced by the redesigning, expect resistance. And this is one of the lessons you can take away from the post-Katrina era: that the more vicious and radical the plan, the more likely it was, to fail. We (are) negotiating the footprint, water storage, house relocation, house floating, and so the challenge for us then, exactly what we need, is ambitious and radical plan(s). So I’ll leave that on the table. Thank you. 422 appendix x the people’s plan

423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 h o u s i n g d a m a g e Over 80% of housing had no structural damage. Fifteen teams of university students conducted a survey of the residential housing on 165 blocks in Planning Districts 7 and 8. The survey covered 12% of the building stock in these districts. The teams captured information on the types of residential structures and the recovery activity evident at the time of the survey. Over 90% of the approximately 3,000 parcels surveyed were residential lots. Of the lots with buildings on them, 85% had a main structure that was single story, 14% had a structure with two stories, and 1% had a structure over two stories.

Breakdown of Structural Damage Vacant Lot Structural damage – collapsed walls, No Structural Damage caved in roofs, or houses that have moved off of their foundation - is lim- Some Structural Damage ited across Planning Districts 7 and 8. Heavy Structural Damage Over 80% of the remaining homes had no structural damage when surveyed in October 2006. While this housing may have been heavily flooded, much of it is potentially cost-effective to repair.

*Based upon 36 blocks surveyed in-depth heavy structural damage

f l o o d d a m a g e Flooding was extensive throughout Breakdown of Flood Damage Planning Districts 7 and 8. Homes Vacant Lot with some flood damage will -typi cally cost $35,000-$50,000 to repair. No Flood Damage Homes with heavy flood damage will Some Flood Damage be more expensive. More importantly, Heavy Flood Damage these heavily flooded homes will likely need to be elevated to new FEMA guidelines. This procedure will add an additional $20,000-$30,000 in repair cost to the 75% of the homes on pier foundations and will be too costly to perform for 25% of homes on slab foundations. 09

*Based upon 36 blocks surveyed in-depth heavy flood damage

433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 18

442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 appendix xi the buoyant foundation project movie

This appendix is a movie file of The Buoyant Foundation Project. The file name of this movie file is “The Buoyant Foundation Project Movie.mp4”.

If you accessed this thesis from a source other than the University of Waterloo, you may not have access to this file. You may access it by searching for this thesis at http://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca.

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